


I am done with my graceless heart (so tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart)

by ughbutidontwantto



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Explicit Language, Gen, Good Brother Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Good Sister Allison Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, POV Multiple, Protective Klaus Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Suicidal Thoughts, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, look they're all good in the end, the third chapter goes right to the edge of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-23 22:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 50,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughbutidontwantto/pseuds/ughbutidontwantto
Summary: Five's jump only takes them five days before the apocalypse. With the countdown restarted, the Hargreeves have to come together and actually talk about the week that wasn't and figure out what fixing Vanya even means. It turns out she already has a few ideas. They'll figure out this recovery thing in the end.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very indulgent take on what happens after the finale, and very much skewed by my love of Vanya Hargreeves. No hate to any of the others (including Luther, he learns eventually). This fic is specifically about Vanya's trauma and how she overcomes it. However, it is no way meant to suggest that her suffering is more important or valid than the others. Comparing their stories like that is exactly what Reginald would want. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> story title from "Shake It Out" by Florence + the Machine
> 
> as mood music please check out my Vanya playlist on spotify. It starts with child Vanya, goes through the events of the show, and carries through to the end of this fic. it can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ayRVXvSGmsenF7PGYWt2i

5.

A restart. It’s a gamble. Selfish maybe. Also their only hope. The world’s only hope too, but there’s a real element of “just fuck it” when he first comes up with the idea, so he’s not exactly in the mood to pretend they’re heroes right now. The Hargreeves are so dysfunctional the moon exploded; time to put childish dreams away. Or maybe not, because he doesn’t actually know if he can do this jump. A bit of belief might be nice.

Time works like this: the past is more stable than the future, but less magnetic than the present, which is both fixed and relative depending on perspective. As a witness, a jump to the past can actually reinforce a timeline; with respect to the future, it can bring one into being. As an actor it is the reverse. And actually. He is beginning to understand something terrifying about why he was bound so tightly to the apocalyptic future, but that is a problem to be examined at a later (or earlier) date. 

So, to clarify, in order of difficulty, it is easiest to jump into one’s own immediate past, then the past in general, and finally the future in concept. Here’s what he learned after his first and only jump to the future: it is nearly impossible to jump into a timeline you were never in. For Five this constitutes a straight line between the summer of 2003 and the spring of 2019. It took him over four decades to understand the quantum ramifications of removing himself from the timeline he was born being a part of. It is only now just occurring to him that the emotional ramifications may have been worse. One day he likes to think he will be finished paying for a mistake he made as a child in a fit of pique against his father. He just has to get this right first.

So options of when. Going back to their childhood is conceivably possible, but not entirely practical. It would take a massive amount of energy just for himself. To move six (seven? Does Ben’s spirit have mass or just movement?) bodies through time would likely prove fatal. And the calculations involved to ensure they wouldn’t just be sad, adult doppelgangers are too complex for the precious seconds between this moment and the first crash of falling Moon. So something in the last eight days, ideally as early as possible. They are already so close to being the same people it won’t be near as difficult to slot everybody back in place. So there’s one problem solved.

But here’s the thing: he is not used to passengers. He did it with spacial jumps. Not exactly often, but enough that he is pretty sure he knows how this is going to rip through him. But never so many. And also, this is not a spacial jump. But hadn’t he already established that they have no good options. It is not a question between safe and unsafe. He could do it himself he supposes, but well. He doesn’t want to is the awful truth. Besides, he isn’t sure that would mitigate the danger so much as place it elsewhere. It took them all too long to actually start working together. Can they really risk doing this dance completely in the dark a second time? This isn’t your average game over. This is the whole damn world.

Five was gone for so much of this past week while he tried to solve this by himself. The truth is he still does not fully understand how Vanya destroying the world came to be. Without this information, he does not know if he even could stop this by himself.

He looks at his siblings’ faces as they move into a circle position. There is not much trust here, but there never was much between them. Not as a whole group anyway. He does not look at Vanya. Before, with the way she glowed, it had been physically painful. Now, with no glow, it was just painful. Beyond the very early days in the apocalypse, he had not allowed himself the luxury of missing anyone. Seconds before it is about to happen again, he misses them all desperately. He misses Vanya most of all. He wonders how much better things might have gone if he’d indulged in the feelings sooner.

_Additional Fact #1: Once, Five knew Vanya better than anyone in the whole world. Both because he and Vanya were close, but also there was a time he was certain no one else in the house really knew Vanya at all. And they didn’t fully understand Five. Five cared for them all so much, but it was sometimes hard for them to see and always hard for him to say. Vanya got it though. Vanya always knew how to listen not just to the notes, but all the spaces in between. She tried to do it for everyone--she never stopped trying--but, well. Five always liked it though. And he knows Ben did too once. Ben also understood silence._

In a strange way his powers actually do run on belief. You have to be completely confident that you will arrive exactly where (and when) you mean to. So confident in fact it’s almost like you’re already there.

Really the trick to any good jump is just to fucking do it.

……..

7.

She wakes up to a sky still dark. It was dark then too. She closes her eyes and tries to listen in the way she had before. Back when she could hear everything. That brief, shining moment, it had barely even lasted a second, where she thought even stars were singing. She had come so close to figuring out how to sing back. Maybe she will again.

She sits up.

She has to leave.

Time is not her friend right now.

2.

Diego is currently experiencing the worst headache in his entire life. This is noteworthy because he has not, to this point, had a particularly gentle life. As a child-soldier-boxer-vigilante he knows his way around a concussion. This is so much worse. The full body itch is absolutely not helping. He counts down from twenty before he dares to open his eyes.

He is, improbably, outside. Sort of. He’s actually on a porch. It takes him exactly twelve seconds to place it. This is Eudora’s porch. He is alone on Eudora’s porch. If Five actually fucking did it, there is only one time in recent memory he can remember being on Eudora’s porch. He looks at the sky, still just shy of a full sunrise. That would mean.

It means he just killed his mom. It means his childhood home was attacked a few hours ago. It means his entire family is in danger, but not the kind they were thinking. It means Patch is still alive. It means. It means his head really hurts.

The memories are a little fuzzy to be honest. Everything since the memorial is crystal clear, but everything after him moving from the porch seems… not quite there yet. And well. Yeah. Sure. It hasn’t happened yet. That makes sense, he guesses. He hopes it’s not permanent. Underlying the pain and the itch and the confusion is an urgency he hasn’t felt this intensely since he was a kid and still believed there was a way to finally, fully prove himself to Dad and Number One. Not Mom though. She didn’t need any proof. Then he killed her. But- but- but she came back, didn’t she? Pogo must have… yeah, Pogo must have brought her back. It’s a temporary thing.

Hell he has a time traveler for a brother. Maybe it’s all a temporary thing.

He’s not sure exactly what time Patch is going to open her front door. Soon he thinks. It is the most tempting thing in the world. Maybe to wait, maybe to knock. She is going to be dead in twenty-four hours. To not talk to her now seems like such a waste. But wait. This time she doesn’t have to die at all. The details are still a little lost, but he Knows they are here to change things. Fix something. He can start with this. No matter what else happens it will make the trip worth it.

He knows almost instantly that talking to her is not the best way to do it. ( _No that is not a metaphor for their failed relationship_.) There’s nothing he _could_ say, and who’s to say it wouldn’t even make it worse. He’s always been a doer anyway. He knows the how and where and who of her death. That’s a lot easier to manage than the tangled, aching feeling of seeing her dead. That he remembers like a punch from Luther. He is sure if he tried to talk around it right now, they would be stuck here forever behind his stutter. That’s one way to save her life, but he’d rather something more permanent. Hazel and Cha Cha’s death seem to be the most permanent thing he can think of right about now. And it’ll save them all some real trouble later.

He moves to his car without letting himself think too much about it. He’ll talk to Patch when he knows she’s safe. It’ll be better this way. He refuses to look back at her door in case this is the moment she was going to walk out.

He only hesitates after he’s already started his car. He is not sure what direction to go in. He knows where that shithole motel is, but without backup… The firefight at the house is still fresh in his mind, and he has a hazy memory of trying to attack them at the motel already with Klaus? Suddenly the pain of a bullet in his bicep cuts across the confusion. He gasps, hand unconsciously going to his arm. No blood, and all at once the sensation goes away. With a growl he put the car in reverse. The fucking Academy then. Reinforcements. Fucking-A.

If he’s right about everything, then Luther and Allison should still be there. Five is a giant question mark, but he’s sure once the psychopath wakes up he’ll zap to it. Vanya… Vanya left last night. He made her leave last night. She should be safe though? Safe for now, but not…. Not for much longer. There’s time, he thinks, though that unplaceable urgent feeling comes back. Not a lot of time, but some. For now. That just leaves Klaus.

Klaus. Where is Klaus right now? The last time he saw his brother was after the family meeting about Mom. He didn’t see him before or after the shooting. It took him a--a few days to resurface? Diego frowns. The vet bar. Klaus was weirder than normal. Talking about… oh fuck. Oh absolute fuck. Klaus said he’d been tortured. He knew who Hazel and Cha Cha were immediately. He was missing for at least 24 hours. He told Diego, but— Well Patch was dead and then things kept happening and Klaus didn’t mention it much after. Christ. CHRIST.

He almost turns the car around right there, but he knows, _knows_ that this doesn’t change things, not really. If anything it means backup is even more necessary. Klaus’s kidnapping could easily turn into a hostage situation and the best missions are the ones with as few wild cards as possible. He needs the others. Klaus needs the others. That’s just that. Leading means doing what’s best for everyone. This is the right fucking call even if it kills them. Just another damn family meeting.

Getting stuck at a red light gives him a moment to remember how spectacularly bad their last few family meetings have gone. Most of them not so much ending as someone walking out. Or bullets. Or fucking both. And a lot of them had Vanya- Vanya- Vanya- Oh. Uh. Huh.

A car honks behind him. He doesn’t know how long the light has been green. Any other day he’d be all too happy to flip the guy off, but right now… His sister is going to end the world. Oh she’s gonna have a fuckton of help, but Not— Deep breath. A second deep breath. A third deep fucking breath. Not great. And they have. God. Is it five days now to stop it? Five, absolute little shit, couldn’t give them more time. Five days? What is that.

God, is she safe right now? He has no idea where she went after she left ( _I made her, that was me, I told her she shouldn’t be there_ ). Allison already knew Jenkins, fuck Jenkins came to their house. So he and Vanya have already met, yeah? And that means—- actually he has no clue what that means, because they never actually established the connection between Vanya, Vanya’s apocalyptic powers, and Jenkins. No one ever fucking asked. ( _We locked her in a cage. Luther locked her in a cage. We still walked away._ ) She was fine when she interrupted their meeting to discuss the end of the world ( _isn’t that just hilarious now— Vanya couldn’t possibly have anything to contribute on the subject_ ). Did she already have powers? Does she have them now… Wait? Does she remember like he remembers? Is she also on her way to the house right now. Maybe not even give them a chance to put her in a box ( _I wouldn’t_ ) and jumpstart the whole damn thing.

That’s not— that’s not fair is it? Well is it? She ended the world ( _not by herself_ ). They came back to fix her though. Didn’t they? Isn’t that what Five said? Fix her not— ( _they were going to kill her. They met at the bowling alley they used to go to as kids and they decided. Maybe not fully. But then the theater. They were all in._ ) Fairness feels like too slippery a word for this. It’s the question they’ve been avoiding since the house came down around their ears. Based on the intel they had, it made sense. They knew the world was on a deadline. They saw her on the stage. What else could it be. It was the straightest line from point a to b. ( _Allison knew better. She didn’t go all in._ ) They never stopped. There was never the time.

_Additional Fact #2: Diego never hated Vanya. He never understood her either. For as long as he can remember, Vanya was separated from the rest of them. The strange other that lived in their house. Strange, of course, because anywhere else she would have been normal. She was quiet where everyone was loud. Well Ben wasn’t loud, but that was of a different kind. Number Six was quiet in a gentle way. Number Seven was quiet in a mysterious kind of way, in a it’s always the quiet ones kind of way. Though maybe that’s too much projection of the present onto the past. Either way, it was impossible to completely forget she was never quite one of them._

_Additional Fact #3: Diego was jealous of Vanya. The training was always so hard. Vanya was free from it all. No pressure, no expectations, no pain. When her book came out he couldn’t believe it. All that quiet and it turns out she was just a brat the whole time._

_Additional Fact #4: (This is a secret, but) Diego was scared to be Vanya. It was an unspoken thing in the house, or at least he thought so. They were constantly made to compete. They never forgot their numbers, their rank, their level of importance. As Number Two he pushed himself constantly. Desperate to prove his value, desperate to somehow unseat Number One. To fall behind in training was to slide down down down like Number Four eventually let himself. In the end, being Number Two was bad, but at least it wasn’t Seven. At least he was never ordinary and useless._

_Additional Fact #5: Diego was scared for Vanya. He doesn’t remember how old he was when he started to realize the missions they went on were dangerous. That their whole lives were dangerous. For himself, he loves it, but for the others. He didn’t have to worry about One and Three. They could hold their own in a fight. Four and Six could be good when they weren’t tripping over themselves (always so afraid). But Seven? Seven was completely defenseless. And so, so small. Dad flipped back and forth between outright ignoring her or never letting her more than a few yards away. It meant that she was there for a lot of their training, sometimes even used in their training. It meant sometimes she was in the area during a mission. He would look at her then and think all it would take is just one accident, one slip up. The world didn’t know about her, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t use her to get to them anyway. It used to keep him up at night sometimes. She was the first to move out and it was almost a relief._

He parks the car as he comes to a question he can’t completely answer. If it comes to it, will he go all in again? Does he have it in him? Not the fucking cage, obviously, but everything else. ( _He already knows, though, they’ve done this before._ )

3.

Allison wakes up with her little sister’s name on repeat in her mind. It’s almost like a song. But that’s Vanya’s thing, and she has resolved, at last, to stop taking things away from her sister. She tries to turn the thought into a sound, but she is afraid to test her voice. The pain of cut vocal cords has become distant, but the sense memory of drowning in blood has not. The impotence afterword had stung as bad as her healing cut had burned. This is a fear she had never felt. She tries anyway.

“Vanya.”

The tears are immediate. There had been a moment where she was sure she would never speak again. A part of her felt like this was penance: her power silenced forever. This was for Vanya and Claire and Patrick and all the other big and small ways she’d abused her power over the years. A part of her mourned, if not the power, than everything else. She remembers, sharper than almost anything else right now, calling her daughter in a phone booth unable to tell her something as simple as I love you. But the rest of her had been frustrated and then mad and then furious. Unable to tell her brothers how stupid they were being. A thousand mistakes and she couldn’t get them to just listen. She has always hated being quiet.

_Additional Fact #6: For a very long time Allison resented not having a better sister. Outnumbered by boys everywhere she turned, she thought Vanya should have been the ultimate ally. But she was too weak to fight with the Academy and too plain to be interesting and just too quiet all the time. And Allison knew it was more than just nature. Allison watched as her sister actively worked to make herself as small as possible. Meek and invisible to the point of being vacant. She thought Vanya was pathetic in a way that was not so much pitiable as contemptible. Allison went after every single thing she wanted. Vanya just let life happen to her. A waste of space, she told her once, that’s what she had thought her sister was._

Allison sits up in her old bedroom and sighs. She sing-talks the words to an old song she likes, until she chokes on the word “moonlight”. It feels, for a moment, like the whole house is going to collapse on her all over again. Again. Again. The first time was— Her memories do not filter in, but hit her all at once. She is up immediately, half out the door before she catches up to the fact that she has actually, honest-to-god time traveled (and it is the worst thing she has ever felt ohmygod) and she has absolutely no idea when she is. Isn’t that just a trip.

The way Five had talked she’d been half convinced they were going to wake up children again. A real proper do-over. She is intensely grateful to be proven wrong. She looks around her room for any signs of a date. She doesn’t know how time travel works exactly, but if she is back in her room than it must be within the eight days since she arrived back in the city. God knows she never visited before now. There is nothing concrete enough, though her clock tells her that whatever day it is, it’s a little after 7AM. Quietly she creeps out of her room and walks down the hallway.

Her quest takes her to the second floor landing. She glances at Mom’s paintings before doing a double take. Oh, Mom. So after the attack on the house then. A peak over the banister shows the fallen chandelier. Walking a little closer to Grace she struggles to remember exactly when Pogo brought her back online. Pretty soon after, she thinks. Within a day, maybe a day and a half? As intensely as they arrived, the memories of the past week from hell are a little jumbled, like frames of a film out of order. If she has a handle on this, she thinks it gives them maybe four or five days until Vanya’s concert. Thinking of her sister almost makes her cry again, but now feels like a bad time to collapse. They have a second chance, and that’s what matters. This time she can protect her. She will. She will. She will.

_Additional Fact #7: This protective instinct feels a little foreign to Allison. Luther always felt it was his job and Diego came by his protective instincts by nature. Klaus had a bit of a latent mother hen thing, but that was not something Dad encouraged and it crumbled, anyway, in the face of greater temptations. She was sure Five cared before he left, but only in a strange abrasive way that only Vanya and Ben had patience for. Ben was, of course, always lovely. Even Vanya, when she dared, had a pretty solid tendency towards caretaking. But Allison? Not really her thing. Some people are flowers and some people are gardeners and she had always, always known what she wanted to be. It suited her perfectly well for twenty-nine years. Well no, twenty-five years. Claire was… Claire is the best thing that ever happened to her, but motherhood is complicated, and she had no real model for what a parent is. As it turned out, the only thing Claire ever needed protection from was her own mother. The point is that this bone deep need to protect someone? It’s foreign, but shit does it feel Right. She can’t imagine why she waited so long to start._

She’s not sure what to do next. Whatever her expectations were when they huddled together in the theater, she never imagined she would be alone on the other end. If she closes her eyes, she can still feel her sister’s hand in her own, a desperate tether to whatever was going to come next. Vanya’s not here now. Getting ready for rehearsal maybe? She needs to find her, but going in separate directions got them in such trouble before. The Academy seems like the most sensible place to be, surely wherever everyone else is, this would be the obvious meeting place. The thought, however, of her sister waking up with memories of the last 24 hours alone makes her absolutely sick. ( _Is that the right way to put it? Last 24 hours. Tenses are going to be an absolute bitch over the next few days._ ) Before she can make a concrete decision, the front door opens. 

“Diego, thank god.” She rushes down the stairs before he can respond. She throws herself into a hug he returns without hesitation. It’s so much more familial than they’ve ever been, but he gets it, they both do. It’s been a rough, well, it’s been a rough everything. They break apart, both a little teary eyed.

“It’s g-g-g-good to hear you ag-g-gain, sis,” his smile is soft as he briefly cups her cheek. She hasn’t heard him stutter in a long time, but stress never helped in the past. He takes a step back and is immediately back to business. “The others?”

“I’m not sure. Luther should be here, but I didn’t think to check. I was too focused on figuring out when exactly Five brought us.” He confirms her suspicions about the date. Morning after the attack like she thought. “I have no idea about Five or Klaus or, or,” she has to swallow once, twice, “or Vanya.”

“I d-d-don’t know about Vanya. Luther and me, we f-found Five d-d-drunk in a li-library a f-f-few hours f-f-f-from now. B-b-but Klaus n-n-n-needs our h-h-help.”

“But Vanya!” she cries. She feels immediately terrible for saying it, but the fire is still there reminding her of the hours of terror she felt for her sister after she woke up on The Academy operating table. She can also still feel the smooth click of the gun the day after that.

Diego nods with a slight grimace. “We’ll h-help them b-b-both, b-b-but Klaus h-h-has to come first, trust me.” When she doesn’t respond, he sighs. “L-l-let’s go check on Number One, yeah? H-h-hate to s-s-say it, b-but we’re gonna n-n-need h-h-h-him.” It’s the shock of that statement alone that gets her moving. They’re quick up the stairs. She watches him flinch with his whole body when he spots mom, but he keeps moving. She squeezes his hand in solidarity. 

They arrive at Luther’s room quickly. Diego doesn’t even bother knocking, rather pushing the door open with enough force for it to swing into the wall with a bang. Luther is lying in his bed unbothered, still shirtless from last night. She desperately hopes he’ll have enough presence of mind to not be bothered that they can see his torso, She hopes Diego will have enough tact not to say anything about it right now.

“H-hey, asshole!” Diego kneels to grab the nearest shirt on the ground. tosses it haphazard in Luther’s direction, and begins poking their brother in the face. “Hey, asshole, wake up.” It takes about a minute of this before Luther violently starts. His hand is immediately around Diego’s wrist. Diego does an admirable job of keeping his wince to a minimum while Luther’s eyes frantically search the room. Allison moves to make better eye contact with him, and is gratified when he starts to visibly calm down.

“Allison,” he sighs, closing his eyes, but with his hand still on Diego.

“T-t-touching as that w-was, w-w-we g-g-got a m-mission, N-number One,” Diego pauses with another wince, “and I think you’re about to b-break m-m-my wrist.”

Luther let’s go immediately “What mission?” and then, a blink, “Oh my god, the moon!” It’s not funny. It is absolutely not funny. It is a little bit funny. She has to stifle a giggle that she knows would come out a little deranged.

“That t-t-too, but first, Klaus.” Diego doesn’t bother to hide the slightly mocking tone, but then he never did.

“Klaus?” Luther asks like he’s never heard the name before. “What’s Klaus got to do with saving the world. Vanya’s the one we have to stop.” Allison sighs deeply through her nose. She is too far away to hit him so gives him a withering stare instead.

“Nice, Luthor. Glad to see time travel has helped your perspective.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, “That being said, Diego, I would like to know why you think Klaus is in danger. More danger than the world ending,” she hopes the reminder will be enough to get him to see a little more sense in his priorities.

Diego takes a deep breath like he’s always done when he knows it’s really important to get out what he wants to say. She’s feels oddly proud of him, actually, at how calm he seems considering she has felt about three inches away from panic since she woke up. “I know Klaus is in t-trouble,” he closes his eyes with another deep breath, “because he told me last time around. He was in the h-h-house last night when Hazel and Cha Cha attacked. They took him, we didn’t notice, and there’s a really good chance he’s being tortured right fucking now. So,” he opens his eyes to glare, “we are going to drive over to the shitty motel he’s being held at, we’re going to rescue him, if he’s still there, we’re going to grab Five’s drunk ass from the library, then we’re going to find Vanya and we’re going to h-h-help her. Any fucking questions?”

Uh yeah, a lot actually.

“Klaus was tortured?” is the one that comes out. “How did we not know that?”

Diego pauses in Luther’s doorway and sighs deeply. “I d-d-don’t know if you’ve noticed, Allison, but it t-turns out we’re not a very good f-f-family.” She closes her eyes and breathes through exactly like she would if she had been punched.

“Allison?” Luther asks with a small, uncertain voice. She turns to look at him. He seems to have just realized he has been shirtless this whole conversation. The knowledge is clearly doing something to him, but he has so far kept the shame-panic to his eyes only. She appreciates what she is choosing to interpret as a check in on her and not a need of reassurance for him.

She tries to call up her gentlest smile. It’s hard. She doesn’t feel remotely gentle right now. Somewhere inside there is a rage building that her mind can’t place yet. Something time displacement is still trying to place. She tries anyway, she’s an actress after all, so soft as she knows how she says, “Get changed, Luther. We’ve got to go save our family.” She turns, not bothering to see if he does. Diego isn’t going to wait for long she knows.

4\. (and 6.)

Klaus comes to with his hands tied, duct tape over his mouth, and in a closet. He’s definitely had worse mornings. He turns a little to see Ben looking even more worried than normal, which feels off because Benny Boy should know better than most that this barely registers on Klaus’s crazy meter. That being said, Klaus knows himself, and best case scenario he’s got about five minutes before a claustrophobia induced panic attack kicks in. It is the confusion more than anything that is keeping his focus from slipping.

“Klaus,” he says all urgent and bossy. “Please tell me you’re finally awake.” It’s rude is what it is. Ben can clearly see the tape. He tries to convey that with his eyes, but he honestly feels completely turned inside out. If this is a new side to withdrawal he will abso-fuckin-lutely pass, thanks. Not that he wouldn’t have passed on withdrawal already. He tries to do an internal temperature check to figure out exactly what stage he’s in, but it’s coming back all screwy. It would help, he figures, if he could actually remember how he got in the closet to begin with. ( _It doesn’t even work as a metaphor. Ain’t nobody mistook Klaus for anything but himself since he was twelve, danke; he works quite hard for it actually._ )

“I can help with the tape,” Ben tries again, “if you can manifest me like you did at the theater.” Klaus looks at his brother cross eyed, because that rings approximately no bells. And he’s almost 70% sure he would remember a power upgrade like that. Ben puffs up into what Klaus has taken to thinking of as worry level three. He’s never gotten higher than five, which he takes as a kind of personal challenge, though he’ll never, ever, wever tell Ben that.

“At Vanya’s concert,” Ben chews his lip in nervous hesitation. Klaus blinks because it’s a gesture from childhood that he hasn’t seen in literal years. Then he blinks again, because Vanya’s concert? He doesn’t know a nice way to remind Ben that it’s been a really long time since the family in general, and he in particular have been nice enough to show that kind of support. A long time ago, he and Allison were thick as thieves and he hasn’t bothered to see one of her movies in ages let alone be caught dead at one of Vanya’s stuffy performances. Love ya, sis, but decidedly not his scene.

_Additional Fact #8: Vanya’s violin didn’t really chase the ghosts away, but it helped. He slept better on the days she practiced late into the night._

_Additional Fact #9: Klaus took Vanya’s room after she packed her bags in the middle of the night and vanished like she was always so good at. He didn’t take it immediately, because it actually took a few days to establish she definitely was gone, and another few to accept she was not going to come back for it any time soon. Accept might be a strong word. Klaus thinks he probably missed her more than the others, but that’s a laughably low bar, and it was mostly only because they had shared a wall for their entire childhood. Compared to the drama of Five’s storm out and Ben’s still very fresh demise, Vanya’s quiet, little disappearing act barely registered. (Not true actually, because her leaving was closely followed by Two and Three, and privately, Klaus had always thought it was kind of rockstar of Vanya to kick start an actual exodus.) Still Klaus was grateful to double his meager space—once the wall came down his room was about the size of Diego’s. He was also grateful for a note he got a few months later with her new address and a promise he could crash whenever he needed a safe place to land, her somehow knowing he was spending more and more time out of the Academy. And even for a second note after she finally moved to a better part of town a few years later. She would have given him a key, but he liked breaking in better._

_Additional Fact #10: Vanya was his emergency contact for all thirteen years after they all stopped living together. Even after the book came out. He saw Diego more frequently, was on better terms with him, but he knew Vanya was the one who could always be counted on to come pick him up. And she did. Every time._

Ben is starting to look really nervous now and it’s definitely putting him on edge. Thankfully the one sided conversation also seems to be getting on Ben’s nerves. He keeps fidgeting, but enough that Klaus can go back to trying to take stock of his current internal state. His external state is still to be avoided at all costs, though his breathing gets faster every time he opens his eyes and sees less than a foot of space in front of him. His neck hurts a little, definitely got some kind of head injury, robe burns are obvious. Fucked as it is, he’s pretty comfortable saying there’s been some torture involved in the last few hours. Literally comfortable, because if there’s one thing that unites all the Hargreeves children it’s being on a first name basis with basic torture techniques ( _even ickle Vanya because Reggie was a paranoid bastard about everything_ ).

The hows and whys of it all are still escaping him, but he does have the vaguest recollection of an excellent post-bath dance out, and maybe being questioned about one of his brothers? If that’s the case, then once again being a Hargreeves is To Suffer, and also sucks for the kidnappers because Klaus is told jackall even when he isn’t experiencing bizarre bouts of amnesia.

“Klaus. Klaus! Klaus!” He is not roused so much by Ben’s voice as the whole body shiver he gets when his brother tries to shake him and the hand goes straight through. Since the shake goes straight to his increasingly painful head he gives Ben a glare both fierce, but also, he hopes, fundamentally disinterested in whatever he has to say. It’s his best impression of Five, in other words. Ben does not look fazed in the slightest. In fact, if he had to, he’d say Ben is looking downright pleased. Almost, jeeze, almost touched if the slight emotion in his eyes means anything. “Klaus,” he says again, “I think the cavalry has arrived.”

Before Klaus can parse out that mystery of a sentence, there is a loud bang that he normally associates with Diego’s complete lack of subtlety. But that can’t be. Because that would mean his family is actually here to get him. And that’s not. Well that’s just not the reality he’s used to living in. If he weren’t so desperately, devastatingly sure that the last of his drugs were with sincerest regrets leaving his body, he’d think he was fucking high for even imagining any of his siblings were here for a rescue. He glances at Ben, looking giddy and all too soft.

“Klaus!” Luther’s bark is unmistakable, nearly as Pavlovian as Dad’s dour tones. That would mean not one, but two ( _not a pun, thank you very much, there are standards_ ) of his brothers are here. That’s a hallmark card right there.

“Where is he?” Diego sounds frustrated. Klaus can picture the expression perfectly. He knows he should be making more noises to aid their search, but he is honestly still too stunned.

“Closet,” Allison—ALLISON—suggests mere seconds before his brilliant sister’s face appears at the now open door of his tiny prison cell. Her face, so pretty he should tell her more, goes from elated to worried to sad in the span of a few seconds. Klaus feels like he has stepped into a Rockwell painting. “Oh, Klaus,” her voice is as gentle as the hand on his face. Klaus closes his eyes since it feels more dignified than crying. When he opens them Diego is there looking relieved, but angry because he is never not. They help him stand. For the first time he notices he’s been in a towel exclusively this entire time. He’s not a modest lady, and he doubts Diego or Allison will be particularly phased, but he thinks, if he plays it right, he could really scar Luther a bit before this is through.

“I don’t know, maybe we should leave the tape on for a bit. Kind of an improvement don’t you think?” Diego responds to a question Klaus wasn’t paying attention to. Even that’s not enough to ruin his good mood. And despite the grumpy routine, Diego is even lighter with his knife on the rope than Allison is with the tape. With it gone, he moves his jaw experimentally before giving his three siblings his most winning smile.

“All of this, for little old me? Why family, I never knew you cared.” He is absolutely delighted, did not mean it as a dig, and is therefore thoroughly confused by the shifty guilt that plays on their faces. Even Luther, whose got this slightly impatient, preoccupied look in his eyes, twists his mouth in, what, shame? Klaus wouldn’t know. In the whole of his life, Number One has never admitted the kind of fallibility necessary for the expression. Predictably his brother immediately tries to channel the feeling elsewhere.

“Of course we care, Klaus!” Luther must realize it comes out annoyed. He doesn’t even need Allison’s little smack before he turns regretful around the edges. “I mean after the week we’ve all had.” Klaus isn’t really sure what that means. Dad died, he guesses, and Luther was clearly taking it hard, but that hadn’t exactly made him sentimental towards them earlier. Ask Ben’s shitty statue. The confusion must be on his face, because Allison and Diego are both frowning.

Ben pops up between them, he’d been lost in the shuffle for a bit, and Klaus already feels 6% more stable for seeing him. “Go easy on them, Klaus. The stuff with Vanya,” again the childish chewing on his lip, “it’s a lot.”

( _Additional Fact #11: Ben had loved his siblings so much. There were all sorts of overlapping internal groupings in The Umbrella Academy. He had always been proud to say he could fit into any of them; hard work, sometimes, but worth it. While he liked everyone equally and was the only one on good terms with everyone at the time of his death, if you absolutely made him, he’d admit a slight preference for his time spent with Vanya and Five. The two of them were kind of a set, but when he was there it effortlessly became Five-Six-Seven.They had the most in common was all. They all enjoyed reading, and Ben could crossover easily enough from Vanya’s taste towards the humanities and Five’s preference of more hard sciences. And both were amiable towards his more literary love. He liked listening to Five ramble and Vanya’s violin, and while it lasted, it had quietly been Ben’s favorite thing in the world._

_Additional Fact #12: Everything changed after Five left. About a month later, Vanya got sick again and came back from quarantine quieter than ever. The time Ben spent alone with Vanya was never the same after. And it’s not, Ben swears it’s not that he didn’t love Vanya as much as Five, but his absence was a crushing thing sometimes between the two of them. That wasn’t the only problem though. If Vanya had been kept separate before Five, after he was gone Father put her in near isolation. Not all at once, of course, they would have noticed, but Ben has had a lot of time for hindsight. The real problem was that when it came to defying their Father, Five had always been the bravest of them. Ben died before he ever worked out that trick._ )

There’s hesitation when Allison asks, “Klaus, have you remembered what happened yet? Five’s time travel?”

“You mean him coming back? Pretty hard to forget, the return of a long lost brother, don’t you think?” he replies with a laugh.

“No, Klaus,” Diego looks deadly serious and it’s kind of ruining his buzz, “do you remember what happened with Vanya?”

“Vanya?” he repeats stupidly. He’s beginning to feel acutely nervous now. It’s an edge he used to feel all the time when they were kids and first started going on missions, like every day was gonna be The Day he finally learned what a ghost was like when it was someone you cared about. It was so much worse the day it actually happened. Through sheer fucking willpower he does not look around for his little sister’s ghost. Instead he looks at Ben in the hope he will clear up whatever this is, but for once, Ben won’t look at him.

Sounding as level as he knows how, Klaus tries, “Ben mentioned something about her having a concert.” He knows it’s a crapshoot mentioning Ben, they’ve never believed him before, but this upsettingly serious vibe might work in his favor for once. All three of his visible siblings exchange looks.

Finally, “Ben’s here?” Luther asks sounding oddly young. Klaus squints at him. His brother looks pleased, but not surprised. Allison and Diego are already glancing around the room. Isn’t that something. It must be one hell of a puzzle piece he’s missing then.

“He’s, uh, standing right behind Diego.” Klaus points for emphasis. Diego immediately turns like a dog chasing his tail, which Klaus would laugh at, only they didn’t believe him for so long, and to have their faith so suddenly now, it doesn’t feel funny in the slightest.

Unable to stop himself, Klaus blurts, “he sends his love, by the way.” Ben scoffs a little, because of course he hadn’t said anything, but he doesn’t correct him as a) he’s near tears with Diego nearly, but not quite making eye contact with him for the first time in years, and b) it’s not like he hasn’t been trying to send his love from the very first moment since he died. Allison and Luther are both looking in the same direction as Diego. The emotion in the room turns painfully thick, and Klaus is sure one of them is about to break out in touchy-feely hives any second now. Sentiment was always a dirty word in their house, and, in this respect at least, these apples never worked all that hard to get too far from the tree. Klaus is absolutely shocked when Ben of all people breaks it.

“Klaus,” he prods whilst sounding a little strangled, “you’ve got to get them out of here. Hazel and Cha Cha will be back soon. And you guys _have_ to go find Vanya.” Something unclenches inside of Klaus at his words.

“She,” he begins through gritted teeth, “she’s not dead then?” His siblings turned to him when he spoke, but he kept his eyes on Ben, who looks a little surprised and sad at the question.

“No, Klaus, she’s not dead,” he soothes.

“But in trouble?”

“Very big trouble,” Ben agrees.

Allison hums to get his attention with an unreadable expression on her face. “Are you two talking about Vanya?” He nods. “Do you— Does Ben know where she is? Or how she is?” Klaus knows Ben goes snooping on their other siblings sometimes. There are limits to how far he can get away from his grave, so he’s never made it out to L.A. or the moon, but he’s checked on Diego and Vanya before. It’s a good question actually. He turns to Ben, and knows the answer from the dejected frown.

“He can’t find her,” the other three look worried, so he adds, “probably doesn’t mean anything. These kinds of things are more an art than a science.” It’s good enough, he guesses, since they all look a bit more resolved now. “He does, however, say we should vamoose before, uh, a Hazel and Cha Cha get here, which, come one, that has to be a prank right?”

More exchanged looks. At a guess, Klaus thinks that must mean he’s forgotten more than they were expecting. Worrisome, but not too too troubling. His brain is slippery on the best of days, and the blood crusting on his neck proves that this is not, alas, the best of days. Luther sighs in an annoyed way that 9 times out of 10 is followed by a question about drug usage. Klaus is almost glad for it, because it’s the exact thing that will kill the last of the whole Brady Bunch vibe they’d had earlier. It was nice, just shy of cloying, but so unusual it was making him start to feel a little unreal. Though it occurs to him that the fog he’s falling into might actually be withdrawal this time.

“Hazel and Cha Cha,” Allison cuts in before the lecture starts, “are the two pyscopaths who kidnapped you last night. They attacked the house looking for Five. They,” Allsion frowns at a seeming loss, “they work for an organization Five used to that—” unsure, she stops again.

“They’re temporal assassins,” Luther follows. He clearly thinks that’s helpful, but Klaus has to roll the words around a few times in his head before they become even slightly intelligible.

Diego snorts, whether at Luther’s less than stellar explanation or Klaus’s confused expression anyone’s guess. “They’re freaks who wear kids masks and want the world to end.” Wildly, that sounds a bit familiar.

“Kids masks?” he asks, “uh, a pink dog and a blue, I don’t know gopher?”

“I think it’s a bear actually,” Allison answers. Like a lock clicking, the memories of last night slide into place. Not much else of whatever his siblings were mentioning, still no idea why or what to do with this foreboding feeling he has about Vanya, but definitely last night.

“Not to your taste?” he asks with a wince, “can’t possibly imagine why, they were perfectly charming to me.”

Diego gives him a searching look, “You ok, man? Don’t bullshit. You know the drill, no use hiding injuries.”

“Nah,” he brushes off, “Shaken, not stirred. Professional assassins maybe, but kind of mediocre interrogators. Nothing old Reginald didn’t beat out of us by the time we were nine.” Diego shoots one last considering look before nodding, just another day at The Academy. He pretty much tunes them out after that.

Now that he has a rough estimate on how long he was captive, he can figure out where he is on the sliding sobriety scale. He’s a little surprised the shakes haven’t started, but he’s definitely sweating. A hit would be fucking beautiful right about now. Difficult, but not impossible with the sibs present. Once they ditch this depressing room, he can lose them as easy as he found them. That’s probably a little sad for Ben, but he won’t be surprised. The Waltons life never suited them anyway, and he’ll be next to useless on whatever mission they seem to be planning. He can get an update on Vanya when he’s not about to crawl out of his skin. She’ll understand as well as she ever has in the past.

His eyes start to wander around the room, bummed beyond belief that Cha Cha and Hazel wasted perfectly good pills just to make a point. He thinks he should probably tell his siblings about the medical company since he told the assassins and that would even the score, but talking would definitely interfere with his goal to not puke before this wave of nausea passes. As a distraction he starts cataloging non-family objects in the room. After a minute of this, his eyes land on an air grate, and something in his mind absolutely jumps in recognition. With zero warning he's up, nearly hits Diego, walks through Ben, and finds himself on his knees. He pulls the grille away from the wall.

The sight of the briefcase gives him the worst case of deja vu he’s ever had. It doesn’t stop him from reaching out and grabbing it though. He’s nearly positive someone calls out his name, but the case is open before they even have a chance to stop him.

….

He slams feet first into Vietnam, 1968 in the exact same tent as before. He knows this because he’d guess about half of his memories of the week leading up the what he will now be calling the Apocalypse Suite slam into him at the same time. Dave Katz’s eyes are just familiar enough that he is desperate to know more.

….

The other half of his memories come in as he lands back at the end of March, 2019 just as broken hearted as before. Memory fully restored, he can compare the two Vietnams like he’s a kid playing a spot the difference game. Things with Dave had been a little different the second time around, but exactly as wonderful. Dave’s death still hit him like a truck.

An important difference is that he is coming back considerably more sober than he had the last time. He hadn’t had all the context, but he knew just enough at the start to know that this time he wanted to be as present as possible for Dave. He also had a vague memory of it being very important to him that he was clean when he got back. ( _He only remembers why when it’s too late. The unfairness of this curdles something inside of him so much he thinks he’ll run the risk of true bitterness now. A touch harder than anything he was before._ ) He is already thinking about ruining it, but he understands the danger he had forgotten before.

Also, and it’s not a small thing, but him staying sober, for the foreseeable future at least, will be good for Ben. He remembers the excitement they both felt when he manifested his brother last time, and he’d like to have that again very much. And, since they absolutely will be helping Vanya this time around, her being able to see Ben could actually go a long way. Here you go kid, you’re family locked you in a dungeon, you brought the house down, your brothers tried to kill you, and then you destroyed the moon, but it’s not all bad because here’s a dearly departed brother. Technically he never tried to kill you.

_Additional Fact #13: For most of their childhood, Klaus could never tell if their father hated him or Number Seven more. Knowing that kind of information mattered in their childhood home, where it dictated everything from bedroom size to punishments to general self esteem. It was a race to the bottom either way. As a kid he would sometimes wonder why it didn’t bond them more. Vanya was kinder to him then most, he remembers, and particularly gentle on the days after the mausoleum. His special training was technically a secret, but Vanya was the best in the whole house for ferreting out those kinds of whispers. As for Klaus, well, he didn’t have a lot of kindness to spare, he supposes. He had lost so much to the darkness. He never had the strength to save himself, let alone anyone else._

_Additional Fact #14: Up until exactly this whole Apocalypse Suite thing, Klause was positive he would have traded places with Number Seven in a heartbeat. Being ordinary—strictly in the sense of not having ghosts scream at him all the time—always sounded like such a gift. He knows Number Six felt the same. He wasn’t quite like One through Three though. He never thought Seven was somehow exempt from their father’s cruelty just because she didn’t train with them. He knew ordinary never meant free or safe, but he had hoped it at least meant sane._

He has the presence of mind not to destroy the briefcase this time around. He can see how it might be helpful, and it’s not like he has any idea if Luther, Diego, and Allison ended up sticking around for Hazel and Cha Cha after all. And Five will like it, so that’s gotta count for something. He clutches the case close to his chest on what he’s hoping will be his last bus ride for a long time. The Academy seems as good a place to wait for the apocalypse as any. Though actually, if there is any kindness left in the world, Vanya will have gotten there before him and there won’t be a wait at all.

We are all, he thinks, just looking for a safe place to land.

5.

It is, in the end, infinitely worse than Five thought it was going to be. He comes to in the van he had been using for stakeout at the medical lab. Within seconds he has the door wrenched open so he can be violently ill in a less enclosed space. The retching feels like it’s going to last forever, his body literally trying to turn inside out in its attempt to find balance in a new-old space and time. When it’s finally over, he goes to wipe his face and finds the after effects of a bloody nose. He survived, that’s something, but this is also probably proof he wasn’t really ready for a jump of this caliber. He feels out of shape, literally.

He allows himself a moment of rest, head bent to the steering wheel. He starts going over equations in his mind for no other reason other than wanting to feel a little bit of balance. It works out pretty well actually, because by the time he looks up Hazel and Cha Cha have already crossed the street to the steps leading into the lab. Huh, maybe something is finally going to go right.

Despite still feeling like something vital had been positively ripped out of him, he straightens and starts grabbing for weapons. Compartmentalization was a necessary skill long before he got stranded in an apocalypse. Needs must and all that. He remembers the talk with Hazel at the bar, feels a moment of not quite guilt, and then pushes that to the side too. His former colleagues are professionals. They know how the game is played. And if this restart is going to work, it’s time to start eliminating as many variables as possible. If his family has any brain cells at all, they’re on their way to take care of Jenkins.

Even half dead, killing the two of them isn’t as hard as he was thinking it would be. He avoids jumping, which gave the other assassins a head start, but he saw pretty quickly there was something off about them. When he got to the right floor and realized they were high, the last of his not-guilt vanished. Jesus, did no one have professional pride anymore? He thought his exhaustion put him on about even ground with their intoxication, but while they were very good, he had been great. And he had advantages he hadn’t had the last few times they ran into each other. There wasn’t any panic this time, now he knew exactly what needed to be fixed in order to save the world. The stakes have crystallized, bigger than he knew, and it helps give him focus.

He leaves their bodies without even trying to clean up. The trauma of two corpses has to be better than a burnt down office any day. He makes his way back to the van slowly, replaying every detail he knows about the week between his father’s memorial and Vanya’s concert. He creates a list of factors both known and unknown and grimaces when he realized the latter is still longer than he’s comfortable with. But the only way he’s going to get the information he needs is by, well, going out and getting it.

He gets back to the van and goes for the map he bought of the city. He knew it pretty well back before he left, and all it ever takes is a blink to see it warped and on fire, but 2019 is it’s own thing. He traces a straight line from where he is to where he knows Jenkins’s house is, tries to do the math, and decides, bitterly, it’s not worth the risk to make the jump right now. He feels oddly vulnerable about it, but he knows now isn’t the time to lose a lung or something just to save twenty minutes. He wanted to be earlier in the week, but he thinks they’ve still arrived within a comfortable margin.

Assuming he hasn’t arrived alone, that is. He never anticipated waking up alone, and it’s worrying him more than he will admit. His mind and body are more or less in tact, but his body was also essentially built for this kind of thing. He has no real clue what the effect of the travel will be on his siblings. But this is also not a time for baseless conjecture. At present, the most logical assumption is that they have also returned to wherever their bodies were at the moment they landed. Their mental states are a bit more precarious, but only seeing them will illuminate that particular issue, and therefore irrelevant outside of their presence. Worst case is that they are dead, which will require further calculations on his part. Medium case they are fine, but don’t remember. Best case they are all, including a stable Vanya, gathered together already and working on a plan to train Number Seven. In-between cases exist, of course, but speculation is mostly useless.

The drive to Jenkins’s feels unforgivably long, but he gets there eventually. The van door is barely closed before he takes a deep breath and attempts the jump inside—it was a bandaid that needed to be off, and he is feeling increasingly impatient to check off at least one of the unknowns on his list. He makes it in just fine, though he can definitely tell he’s close to the bad end of his limit when it comes to jumps. He’s never counted on luck before, but it’ll be very important that he and his family don’t find themselves in any kind of combat situation in the next 24 hours.

The house is disturbingly quiet. This is the third time he has been here; the first time seemingly alone. He does not need to revisit the attic to picture the burnt out Umbrella Academy memorabilia. Disturbing then, but worse now that he knows the degree to which Jenkins was ultimately able to hurt his family. Not that he is any closer to understanding exactly what Jenkins did. He has all of the outcome and none of the lead up.

He does not find Jenkins’s dead body in the kitchen. 

He does find Jenkins’s dead body in the living room.

His face is still intact and there is only one knife ( _a letter opener maybe?_ ) where before there had been dozens and dozens. A glance around the room prove signs of a struggle, but not the tornado from before. He can think of several people who all have a very compelling reason to murder this man, but only one of his siblings would have done it this inexpertly ( _and maybe Klaus_ ). Absent additional information, the most logical conclusion is that Vanya has once again murdered Harold Jenkins. Vanya does not appear to be here anymore. He does not know what that means. Once again, he is all outcome and no lead up.

_Additional Fact #15: Softness was nearly a crime growing up in Reginald Hargreeves’s house. Sometimes Five would look at Number Four and Number Six and he could almost understand why. But he always thought Vanya was a little different. Being soft didn’t seem to make her weak. Eventually he realized it was because she had fought to keep it. Hargreeves worked tirelessly to ensure that things like kindness and affection and solidarity got stamped out. She held out longer than everyone else. Paid the most attention to all of their training schedules and nightmares and anxiety, and tried the hardest to take care, be gentle, be soft. It was strong in its own way. Five didn’t have a lot of natural softness to begin with, lost most of it by the time he got to the apocalypse, and buried the rest in Delores. Five thinks it would be a grand thing to start finding some now. Even better if he can figure out how to help Vanya excavate hers._

It bothers him more than he cares to admit that he has been robbed of killing Jenkins himself for the second time. He meant what he said when he told Luther he never took pleasure in his work, but Harold Jenkins would not have been his typical kind of mark. He does not understand the how of this man. There does not appear to be a single remarkable thing about him. His earlier murder of his father was a vulgar, pedestrian thing. He doesn’t have many of the details about Vanya’s relationship with him, but from what Allison explained, his manipulations seems to have been equally grubby.

Somewhere there is a horrifying joke in all of this, Five is sure of it. He thinks back to his childhood defined by Hargreeves’s paranoia and endless disaster prep and conditioning. They were raised as soldiers and superheroes, the scale of their lives so exceeding anything that might be considered normal. ( _He won’t thank his father for anything, but he knows it’s why he survived 40ish years in an apocalypse._ ) Crouched near the head of Jenkins’s dead body, Five recognizes him as a threat they were never trained for. He feels a squeamish disgust looking at him the same way he would at a picture of gangrene. He was an infection that was too beneath them to be immunized against. His threat was far too _ordinary_ to fully register until it was too late. There is an ugly reason, he knows, that Jenkins thought Vanya would be the best way in.

_Additional Fact #16: Five thought ordinary was far too small a word for Vanya, and he never really understood why she allowed it to eat at her the way she did. For one thing, he wouldn’t have bothered with her if she wasn’t worth his time, which she knew perfectly well. She worked as hard as any of them, because she knew she had to. No powers meant no backup plan, so she had to be smart about it. Whatever she was going to have in this life, she was going to get because she earned it. Clever and determined were important qualities to have to be Five’s friend. There was something kind of fierce about her if you knew how to bring it out. Loyal to a fault; loyal until it burned her. She was even funny when she had the space. She had been his best friend, and that hadn't felt ordinary._

_Additional Fact #17: Five was never completely convinced that Number Seven didn’t have powers. It simply wasn’t logical. He didn’t discuss it with her much because it made her sad, but he always assumed they just hadn’t figured out what her powers were yet. It must have been something small or undetectable or really specific. The one problem in this speculation was Hargreeves. He tested them obsessively. All of them except Seven. It never made any sense. He wondered sometimes if maybe he had found something, but it wasn’t useful in combat and just let it go. That didn’t make a lot of sense either. Father called her ordinary, but kept her around anyway. It had always felt oddly sentimental for a man without sentiment._

There is a rattling at the front door. It puts him on immediate edge until he hears the voices on the other side and feels almost dizzy with relief. He’s only known them like this for a week, but already he’d recognize his adult siblings' voices anywhere. He walks over and opens the door to a stunned looking Diego. He supposes he’s lucky he wasn’t stabbed.

In lieu of a greeting he states, “The door was locked this time.” Diego’s face goes through ten emotions at once, his signature constipated look. His body jerks in a way that Five thinks might be an aborted hug, for which he is very grateful. In the end his brother only nods in agreement and makes his way into the house once Five moves out of the way. Luther follows behind him with big, confused eyes and a soft pat to the shoulder in acknowledgement. Allison is last, shooting him a relieved smile that he feels all the way in his bones.

It doesn’t take them long to find the body. Luther troops back with a frown. “Did you kill him?” Five is almost offended his brother thinks he might ever be that sloppy. He shakes his head.

“Vanya?” Allison asks, voice tight. He feels almost jealous of how worried she looks. All the emotion her body still knows how to show. He doesn’t know exactly what she’s trying to ask. Did Vanya do this? Is she here? Do you think she’s ok?

“I don’t know,” he answers all of the above with a sigh through his nose. The others look grim. Vaguely he notes that Klaus isn’t there, and hopes that’s not going to be another mystery that needs solving.

Diego looks grim. “We checked her place and the theater. She n-n-never showed for rehearsal.”

“She was getting out of rehearsal around this time before. Last time I mean,” Allison explains. After a beat of silence she smiles weakly and adds, “we went out for drinks after.” The fact actually does a lot to settle something in Five. It confirms his suspicion that Vanya hadn’t really become dangerous until she had suddenly become very, very dangerous. He hadn’t seen his sister once between her checking on him at the Academy and her going nuclear at the Icarus. It soothes him knowing there hadn’t been some warning sign he had missed. The corpse in the other room notwithstanding obviously.

“Can you think of anywhere else she might go?” The Academy goes without saying, but that’s where they will inevitably end up, so it would be good to get all the side trips out of the way first. The other three all look helplessly at each other. Five’s teeth clack together. Ah, right, of course. Estrangement, he thinks bitterly.

_Additional Fact #18: The two things that kept Five alive in the first years of the Apocalypse were, in order, Delores and Vanya’s book. Delores was his tether to his humanity and, later, sanity (kind of). The book was his reminder that life had once existed outside of the apocalypse. He used it to write equations as part of his obsession that it could again. Consequently, he cannot be objective about the book. He found it almost two months after the jump. Loneliness had settled on him like a second skin. To suddenly see his sister’s face after all this time (one of the two bodies he never found) had nearly brought him down completely. The part of him that had been her best friend felt oddly proud that Vanya had finally learned to punch back. The book wasn’t nice (though nicer to him than everyone but Ben), but Five wasn’t the type to object to meanness. Being a Hargreeves made everyone mean in the end. The book did hurt him though. Based on math, she wrote it around eight years after he left. She was still adamant it was an accident. She couldn’t quite hide the hope she held that he might come back. Even more upsetting, if there was one thing the book proved, it was how much worse everything got after he left. Ben died, he died, his brother is dead. Everyone hated each other. They didn’t speak. The funniest thing was this: as a kid, Five had never been all that invested in The Mission. He had certainly had bigger hopes for his life than being under his father’s thumb until one of them died. In fact, he used to dream about getting everyone out of that house. Yet. Yet. Yet. At 13, lost, starving, and still just human enough to be desperately, devastatingly homesick he cannot help but resent his family. All of them. He would have given anything to see them again. They could see each other whenever they liked and this is what they had done with it? But everything changes, he knew. The apocalypse was already changing him. He would have to let them go if he was going to survive the difference._

They obviously have no answer. Not bothering to hide his annoyance he bites out, “Well what else have you tried?”

Diego meets Five’s aggression head on, which is surprisingly gratifying. “We h-had to go s-s-save Klaus. Hazel and Cha Cha had him tied up after they attacked the house looking for you.” His brother stops to enjoy a nasty silence as a reminder to Five he missed that the first time around. Apparently satisfied, he continues. “We stuck around a while to see if the lunatics would c-come b-back, but no dice. Allison said we were wasting time and insisted we start looking for Vanya.” Five hums in acknowledgement. He hadn’t paid her much attention before, but he’s beginning to realize Allison grew up quite sensible.

“You were. I killed Hazel and Cha Cha almost immediately after I woke up. Trying to get rid of loose ends.” That leads to a discussion on when and where they woke up. Normally he thinks he’d be a lot more interested in the fact that they woke up at different rates and at different levels of memory. It’s the exact kind of thing he might study if this whole nightmare ever comes to an end. 

At a certain point they decide having a conversation near a corpse is morbid even for them. There’s a bit of dissent on what to do with this body, but the consensus for now is nothing. Five doesn’t think they’ve left any prints anywhere ( _except Vanya obviously_ ), and if it comes to legal action then they’ll spin this the way it already looks. A domestic dispute turns murder in self defense. They can’t know for sure, but Five is almost positive it’s close to what actually happened anyway.

They decide to leave Five’s van for now on the basis it would be harder to track back to them than Diego’s very memorable car. He’s sitting with a miserably hunched Luther in the back when he remembers something Diego had mentioned.

“You said you saved Klaus at a hotel room. Where is he now?” Diego briefly makes eye contact through the rear view mirror before looking away with a scowl. Allison shifts uncomfortably from the passenger seat. Luther of all people finally shows a bit of mercy.

“Klaus he, uh, he found Hazel and Cha Cha’s briefcase. He, well—-” Five’s eyes must widen enough that it stops Luther in his tracks.

“He time traveled? Again? Why did you let him?” He’s not sure what he’s feeling. Anger? Annoyance definitely. Worry? Maybe. Klaus seemed ok enough when Five saw him after he got back. A bit jittery, but that’s time travel for you. He came back once, that should mean he can do it again. But that feels like counting on too many things being the same. It’s not a guarantee he’d end up in the same place, and even if he did they already told him Klaus’s memories weren’t all there. If he died they would have no way of knowing.

“Wait,” Diego sounds equal parts defensive and angry, “you knew too? You knew Klaus went to Vietnam?” Allison actually turns around to frown at him. He thinks they’re both being needlessly fussy.

“Saw him right after he got back. It was pretty obvious he’d just experienced time travel. Signs are clear if you know what to look for.” He pauses, thinks over what he just heard. “Did you say Vietnam?” He remembers dog tags and a strange new tattoo. He hadn’t thought too much of them at the time. They were just clues that proved his suspicion. Klaus blew him off when he asked where he’d been. He could have pushed more, but he was too excited about the possibility of a briefcase and too angry once it was lost. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been all that affected hearing Klaus had been kidnapped either.

“Yeah. Vietnam in 1968. That Vietnam,” Diego grinds out. Distantly Five feels a little bad for the steering wheel. He looks to Allison or Luther to see if somehow this is just them playing a really bad practical joke. A weird bid to relieve some tension in the middle of an apocalyptic situation.

“You sure?” he breathes out.

“Had to fish him out of a bar for veterans. He told me a little after. He—” Diego sighs, “He met someone, I guess. And then he lost them. He was pretty messed up about it. I don’t know how much I believed him, but he was trying to get sober, and it didn’t feel like the kind of thing he’d lie about. After he disappeared at the motel… it was enough to prove his story from before.” Five isn’t sure what to do with this information. He bets the others aren’t either. It’s too sharp a thing to fit easily into the already messy situation they’ve got going with saving the world.

“God,” Five laughs, “we really are the most dysfunctional family in the entire world.” Allison titters from the front and Diego almost smiles. Luther just tries to make himself look smaller.

A bit desperately, Luther asks, “He’ll come back, though, won’t he?”

Five shrugs. He is beginning to feel not so much unbothered as utterly detached. It’s a familiar feeling from the last few hours before the moon shattered. “He did last time. That’s not a guarantee. Time shifts. If it didn’t, we might as well have just stuck around at the theater. But, again, he came back last time.” He looks Luther full in the face, “I guess it depends on how much you trust him.” A tricky thing that. His brother has nothing to say. None of them do. The car descends into an uneasy silence while Five tries out strange sentences in his mind. ( _Klaus fought in the Vietnam War. Klaus fought in Vietnam for ten months. Maybe even twenty. Klaus is a war veteran now. Even more so than what their father had already made of them all._ )

Surprising them all Diego parks the car with a bark of laughter. Allison breathes out a long sigh right after. Five looks around thinking they’ve gone insane. He doesn’t see what they’re reacting to until Luther has awkwardly gotten out of the car. Klaus is sat on the front steps, smoking a cigarette, and giving them an unimpressed squint. He seems mostly ok in the clothes Five remembers him changing into after he cornered him about time travel. Barefoot, their brother stands up, brushes invisible dirt off his legs, and saunters over in their direction. They meet halfway, and no one rushes in for something overly emotional. It is a striking amount of discipline for them.

Klaus takes a long drag of his cigarette and says, “Got back about an hour ago. Cleaned up a bit. Five, there’s a briefcase inside with your name on it, if you want it. Since I was the only one here, I decided to wait outside. Place is feeling a bit haunted these days, if you know what I mean.” He tilts his head to the left, and then to the invisible air he adds, “No, dearest, that was not a dig. Hauntings from you are welcome and completely free of charge. Call it the family discount.” A painful emotion lodges in Five’s throat at the thought of the one brother he can’t see. Even if they do pull this off, he’ll never be able to save Ben. Gathering himself with closed eyes, Five counts on one of the others to say something at least a little nice about seeing Klaus safely returned.

He starts walking towards the Academy without telling them. He looks back only once to make sure they’re following. He sees Allison and Klaus holding hands and that’s good enough for now. Once inside, Five spots the briefcase at the foot of the stairs and sighs in relief. He doesn’t pick it up, there are still a lot of things they need to figure out first. The fact that Vanya is still missing is such an unexpected complication that it’s starting to drag the rest of his mental computations down. Though being an unexpected complication seems to have become quite a skill of hers since he's been gone. Without talking about it, they end up in the living room, gravitating to the couches instead of the bar. Good, they all recognize the war isn’t over yet. Five spots the old grandfather clock from across the room and sighs at the time.

_Additional Fact #19: Vanya almost didn’t get a name. It’s part of a secret that he absolutely pans to take to his grave, but Five was part of the reason she ended up with one. Vanya loved her name from the very first moment she got it. It meant “gift” and she liked that part especially. Five thought it suited her. A month after everyone had been named, Vanya asked him if he was really ok without one. It was not a lie when he said he was. He found the whole thing a little arbitrary even knowing how happy it made everyone else. They drifted into companionable silence only once she was sure he was really ok. It was eventually broken by the chimes of the old grandfather clock announcing their weekend leisure time was over. He turned to share his dismay, but she was too busy looking at the clock to notice. Right before they left, she stopped and pointed at the clock. Look, she had said. Five and Vanya. We Match. It took a second for it to click. When it did he grinned. He always called her “V” after that. Right up until the day he left._

1\. 

Luther looks at his four (five? Does Ben count if he can’t see him) assembled siblings. It’s weird. A week ago, he would have said it would look strange to see them all together again. But the last few days have involved several Family Meetings at this point. Even if time travel means half of them didn’t happen. He likes seeing them all together. It completes something in him he rarely admits to. The very conspicuous absence is surprisingly loud, but he has as much practice as they all do in ignoring it. Well, technically he guesses this is the one time they won’t be doing that. It’s an odd thought.

_Additional Fact #20: Luther had absolutely no opinion about Vanya. He loved her because that’s what a brother is supposed to do. He wanted her to be safe because that’s what a leader wants, but the fact of it was she wasn’t actually on his team. He was Number One and she was Number Seven. They were so far apart, literally like a number line, that he barely thought of her at all. In the proper chain of command, a perfect world, he’s not sure they would ever speak. He thought Father’s world was perfect for a very long time._

He can feel the question bubbling inside of him. He doubts he is the only one. It is bizarre that they aren’t already discussing it. As good as Hargreeves children are at avoiding things, he would never have called any of The Umbrella Academy timid. It’s just not how heroes are built. He looks to Five sitting on the edge of a chair outside of the immediate circle, predictably retreating inward in thought. They will have to watch him to make sure he doesn’t just jump out when they aren’t looking. The last thing the team needs right now is to fracture.

He then observes Allison and Diego buzzing around Klaus. They are asking him about Vietnam without asking him about Vietnam. He can tell their brother is appreciative, but doesn’t quite know what to do with the care behind it. He supposes the sudden about face must seem a bit suspicious. God knows Luther doesn’t have it in him to participate. Maybe they are remembering how they dismissed Klaus at the bowling alley only to see Ben an hour later. Maybe they are remembering Vanya. Vanya who may very well be on her way to ending the world again.

He knows he can’t be the only one to find her disappearance suspicious. A second chance and the first thing she does is murder someone again? ( _The man that they were all going to go after anyway._ ) The first time, after she killed Harold Jenkins she came here ( _for help_ ), but now she’s just vanished. ( _She wouldn’t come back, not after everything. Who Would?_ ) It’s strange. It’s inexplicable. It’s unknown. There isn’t time for that.

Being a leader means asking questions no one wants to ask.

“So what are we going to do?” He tries to put on his most commanding voice. He does not need to look at Diego to know he’s rolling his eyes.

“Do, mein bruder. Why, whatever do you mean?” Klaus is playing the idiot again. Luther hates when Klaus is playing the idiot. It always distracts from what’s important.

“What are we going to do about Vanya?” He leaves no room for argument. He will not play into it this time. Klaus looks at him sharply, and actually he thinks he may have misread him earlier. Maybe he wasn’t just playing, maybe he was testing.

“We’re going to help her like we should have done before,” Allison answers with a sharp tone. She enunciates every word with such force that Luther knows she is a heartbeat away from turning it into a rumor. He is not sure when or how exactly Vanya became such a passion project for Allison. He was hoping the fact that it nearly ended in murder would have been enough to chase her away from it. It hadn’t at the theater, but he thought maybe the time jump would give her the critical distance needed to see the danger at hand.

“She’s not exactly here for us to help right now is she?,” he replies, feeling like he has played a pretty major trump card.

“So we’ll find her,” says Diego. He’s already puffing up from where he had been standing behind the couch Allison and Klaus are sitting on. Luther can already see this turning into a battle of wills, and he instantly feels exhausted. They were backing him at the theater. He hoped this kind of thing could be put to the side until the situation is at least contained. At least the stutter seems to have gone away again, thank god.

“Alright,” he tries for calm and reasonable, “where are you going to start?” Diego instantly starts to deflate. Luther doesn’t feel happy about it. It’s actually pretty sad when he thinks to hard on it. It’s not even a problem with just Vanya. Luther hadn’t known Diego was living in a gym basement up till a few days ago; they didn’t notice when Klaus went missing; Five had a habit of disappearing god knows where. This is just the reality. “Don’t you think,” he tries to make eye contact with all of them, but Five is still staring at nothing, “if Vanya wanted help she would be here already.” _Like last time_ , he does not say, it wouldn’t strengthen his case.

“Maybe she hasn’t woken up yet!” Allison is fishing and they all know it.

“Then who killed Harold Jenkins?”

“Maybe she’s hurt.” That at least is a more reasonable argument, except she doesn't believe it either. The voice in his head that sounds like Dad reminds him that a plan must never be allowed to spring from desperation.

“Alright, Number One, what’s your idea then?” Klaus asks in a tone he’s never heard before. There's a serious, hard-boiled edge that Number Four never had. Testing him, he thinks again. And then, remember, your brother has gone to war. The problem is that he doesn’t really have one. It makes him feel defensive all of the sudden.

“Look, it’s a bad situation, obviously, but if her not being here is an indication of her mental state, then we need to be realistic. Also, let’s not forget that I wasn’t the only one who went “all in” at the end there.” Even Five is looking at him now. Figures the best way to drag an assassin into a conversation is to mention murder.

Klaus stands up and walks until he’s a foot away from Luther. It’s Klaus, so Luther isn’t intimidated, but he’s also never seen his brother look like this. Turns out he burns cold when he’s angry. A quick glance at Allison shows she’s just as upset and in a way that’s never been directed at him. Even Diego seems more controlled in his rage. It occurs to him he’d never really seen Vanya angry before either. He doesn’t like the way his siblings keep changing the script on him.

“I am only going to say this once,” Klaus hisses at him, “you will not now or ever ask me to hurt one of my siblings again. We tried that once, I wish you didn’t have it in you to even think about it a second time.” Klaus holds his eyes for the entire time, but Luther was never taught to back down.

“It’s like Five said, we can’t focus on one life with billions on the line, including ours.” Klaus deflates in a way that’s almost theatrical. Luther thinks that means he’s won this round, and they’re about to be back on more familiar ground. Instead, his brother looks at him with a complex emotion that Luther can’t quite read. He thinks there’s some pity in it though, and the idea of Number Four pitying him is so foreign he almost laughs until he remembers getting drunk right after discovering all his packages from the moon. They’re still up there, he realizes, sitting innocently under the floorboards. Everyone is deadly silent, which he thinks is unfair, particularly from Five who agreed with him back at the bowling alley, pretty words about fixing Vanya be damned.

Klaus sighs and stops in the middle of a hand motion that could have been anything from a slap to a pat on the shoulder. He stumbles back to the couch and puts his head into hands before massaging his cheeks a little. When he looks up again he looks tired. “You want to be Dad so fucking badly, Luther, and I don’t— I can’t even begin to understand why.”

“Dad was right,” he says without thinking. The moon revelation had shaken him badly, but he finds recent events have restored a lot of that lost faith. A glance at Diego tells him he needs to keep going before he starts throwing punches. “Vanya was dangerous. The world did end.” Five’s face is inscrutable, Diego’s doing that thing when he’s trying to get a word out, Allison’s crying so she must have finally accepted he’s right, but Klaus just gets even more haggard looking.

With a humorless laugh Klaus says, “You know Luther, you keep talking about Vanya, but honestly? I’m way more afraid of you than her right now.”

Luther can’t speak around his outrage until finally, “she brought down the house!”

“Ever since I got back, I’ve started to think it might look better that way,” Klaus sneers.

“She tried to kill us!” he shouts back.

Klaus shrugs, “You seem to be in an awful rush to forget that we started it.” Luther blinks a few times, completely thrown by that statement.

“How did we start it?” Klaus shakes his head. Diego snorts behind him.

“Tell me something, Luther,” suddenly Klaus can’t look at him, “if one of us,” he gestures to the rest of their siblings, “steps out of line, you gonna lock us in a cage too?”

“Misbehaves!” he starts, full on shocked. “Vanya didn’t just—”

“What,” Five cuts him off, “does that mean?” Luther blinks at him confused. Also maybe a little bit afraid. Five’s voice has taken on a soft, toneless quality that gives him goosebumps. When no one answers, Five tries again with a little more bite. “What did Klaus mean when he talked about putting us in cages?”

“I forgot you weren’t there,” Diego says quietly. “Luther put Vanya in a—” Diego stops to find the word, “in a cell underneath the house.”

“What? When?” Five asks with a tight voice.

Diego smiles bitterly, “Right before she destroyed it.”

Five turns to Luther like he’s never seen him before. “Why on Earth would you do that?”

“Pogo said—” Luther shakes his head, tries for something softer that doesn’t make it sound like he can’t make his own decisions. “She was a threat. She hurt Allison.”

Allison jumps up, furious, “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare use me to justify— I told you that was my fault! I told you to let her out!”

“Allison you could barely stand. You were obviously—” she cuts him off with a slap. He remembers how weak she seemed when she tried to push him before.

“Obviously what? Confused? A child? Too stupid to know what’s good for me? A helpless damsel for you to fucking save?”

“No, no,” he soothes, “You were hurt, you just didn’t know what you were saying.” He looks into her eyes, trying to get her to understand. Again there is an emotion he’s never seen from her before. It’s the beginning of… hate, he realizes. It’s the beginning of hate. It scares him more than he can say.

“Fuck you,” she seethes. “I knew exactly what I was saying. Then and now,” she shoves him on each word. “You keep acting like I don’t know what happened to me. Do you? You never even asked. You wouldn’t ever let me explain.” She’s got tears in her eyes now.

“Allison,” she turns to Diego, “what did happen at the cabin?” ( _Innocent until proven guilty, that’s what Diego had said before._ ) Allison angrily wipes the tears away and turns away from him. She grabs her own arms at the elbows and takes a few calming breaths without looking at any of them. Finally she looks back. She does retake her seat next to Klaus before she starts talking.

“I went to the cabin twice. The first time was in the morning, but they weren’t there. The second time was after the hospital,” she pauses, twisted eyebrows showing her confusion. “The thing at the hospital— there was an incident. I still don’t really understand how it fits in. I don’t really get how Jenkins—” she sighs, obviously frustrated.

Diego makes a placating gesture with his hand, “That’s ok. We can figure that out later. We can just talk about after for right now.” For the first time Luther realizes Diego actually might have made a pretty good cop.

Allison nods, “When I got back to the cabin, I knew Vanya was there because I could hear her violin.” She smiles a little. “But it was weird. They whole place was going haywire. Lights were swinging, there was a weird wind. I didn’t, I didn’t understand what was going on. When I got inside I found Vanya and she was mostly fine? She wasn’t expecting me obviously. I mentioned how weird everything was, and then she told me it was because of her. That she had powers. Always had powers. I didn’t even know how to begin with that.

“Jenkins wasn’t there, but I knew he was going to come back. I wanted to get her out. That’s all I wanted,” her face crumbles for a moment before she gets control again. “I tried to tell her about what we found out. I’d already tried to warn her a few times before she left, and every time…” a small head-shake, “she was just, I don’t know, completely gone for him. When I brought it up again she was getting overwhelmed, I could, I could see that, but I didn’t know how to help, and... I was still worried that he was going to show up any minute... She was so confused and she then mentioned her powers again, and that’s… that’s when I remembered. I… I…” she stops with a sob. The tears are too much to hold in this time.

As a general rule, they have never been the kind of family that offers comfort when someone is crying. This is largely because they have never been the kind of family that allows someone to catch them crying. Allison in particular prided herself on toughness. He doesn't know if she would welcome physical comfort now, and is sure she wouldn’t want any from Luther specifically. He is particularly grateful then when Diego and Klaus share a look and then slowly walk towards her. Klaus starts making a kind of cooing noise, while Diego gently puts his arm around her shoulders.

“It’s ok,” Diego whispers, “it’s all ok. Why don’t you come sit down again, yeah?” Diego helps place her back on the couch with Klaus who immediately takes her hand in solidarity. Diego leans against the arm of the closest chair. They all wait patiently for Allison to get herself back in order. Even Five walks from where he had been distantly perched to be a little closer to everyone.

Luther didn’t know Five could sound gentle until he says, “Allison, what did you remember?”

“Remember when we were four and Vanya got— no, Dad told us that Vanya got really sick?” Klaus and Five nod. Diego, like Luther, is frowning trying to recall.

Klaus adds, “She was gone for nearly two months. She got sick a lot, though. I mean like once every few years…” he trails off, looking like he was suddenly on the edge of something. He looks back sharply at Allison. Five and Diego are starting to tense. Luther, remembering the very brief summary Pogo gave him, can guess at what they are on the verge of realizing. He’s not sure he understands fully though. When Pogo told him, he hadn’t imagined— He hadn’t thought much behind the understanding that Vanya was dangerous.

“The first time,” Allison shudders, “Dad brought me to see her. She was in that room. The one under the house. He didn’t— he asked me to— he had me rumor her.” There is complete stillness in the room. Even Luther feels like he was punched. Pogo hasn’t mentioned that at all.

“What was it?” Five whispers. Allison shakes her head, her whole face pinched.

“He told me what to say. I never understood. I promise I didn’t know,” she closes her eyes and stops talking. Klaus drops her hand to start rubbing a soothing pattern on her back.

“We know, sis, we know,” Klaus quietly comforts. “You were four. You were just a kid. We were all just kids. We know.”

“Please, Allison,” Five asks just shy of begging. It’s a shock. Five never begs. It’s enough to get her to look at his face. “What did he have you say? I heard a rumor…” he trails off.

Allison swallows and finishes it with a whisper, “you were just ordinary.” 

To be on a team of superheroes you have to have a basic understanding of the powers around you. Growing up with Allison it was particularly important. It took her years to get a handle on phrasing. It was a tricky thing, frighteningly easy to go too big, unintended consequences and all. Every single one of them has at least one horror story of a rumor Allison used on them that accidentally went too far. So the moment they hear it, they all, instantly understand that what she said to Vanya is a really giant rumor. Not “you don’t have powers”, but “ordinary”. Worse than that even, “just ordinary”. A thing like that, especially so young, that could tear a hole right through someone. And of course they were all there, it absolutely did.

“The entire time,” Five says with barely restrained temper. “The entire time, he never let her forget once, always throwing it back at her like it was some moral failing. And it was him. He did it. It was always just him.”

“He made me an accomplice,” Allison spits out.

“No,” Klaus breaths, “he made us all accomplices. He used all of us. Kept her isolated, kept her contained. It’s not like we let her forget either.”

“The sick fucking son of a bitch,” Diego fumes. It’s sits there between them after that. An unpleasant, nauseating rewrite of their entire childhood. Luther actually does feel a little sick. He is trying to imagine... For most of them at least, their powers have always been an integral part of their identities. To lose them would be worse than the loss of sense or a limb. He hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe Dad could have done this to any of them. He wouldn’t though. Only Vanya. Only too dangerous Vanya. Not the others. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Five’s expression turns calculating. “So it really was Vanya. She cut your throat. Your vocal cords actually. Is that why? Because of what you told her?” Allison clasps her hands in front of her face and sighs.

“No,” she admits, “she did start freaking out after. She was angry. Convinced I had known the entire time, that I couldn’t handle that she had powers. She kept telling me to leave, but I wanted to help her, and I couldn’t leave her with Jenkins. He had already… the way she kept talking about him. And her powers were getting worse and worse. It was the only thing I could think of to get her out of the cabin.” looking oddly shamefaced, Allison stops.

“You tried to rumor her again,” Five supplies grimly. Allison nods. It wasn’t what Luthor imagined, but he thinks it should have been the moment they saw the injury. Or at least after Allison told him Vanya did it. Again, they all have rumor horror stories. They all know the slick moment of fear that occurs between “I heard a rumor” and whatever comes after. They’ve all had at least one time when they would have loved nothing more than getting Allison to not finish the sentence. As relatable as the feeling was, it’s not like any of them had ever hurt Allison to do it. Not permanently at least. ( _Only because none of them ever actually had the power to do it before now._ ) The story doesn’t prove that Vanya is less dangerous. It doesn’t prove that Vanya still doesn’t have too much power. He decides to say so out loud.

His siblings collectively look like they’re going to hit him, but he can’t bend on this. They need to understand. “She’s still dangerous.”

“Jesus Christ, Luther!” Diego explodes. “Every single one of us is dangerous. You included.”

“It took years for us to get control over our powers,” Five adds.

“And even now we still lose it,” scoffs Diego. “You ever stop and ask how many bruises I got when you tossed me into Ben’s statue?”

“How about when you choked me just because you were big mad at Daddy Dearest for stranding you on the moon?” Klaus says quietly.

“You— He WHAT?” Diego is seconds away from punching him until Klaus stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Diego, no. That’s not the point. You’re right. It’s not just Luther, it’s all of us. You remember how many accidents you had before you got your curving down. Or that time Allison accidentally put Five in a coma when she rumored him to go away and he jumped further than he could handle. Or when things with between Ben and the Horror got really bad. We’re all dangerous. Our powers make us dangerous.” Luther is about to respond that there’s a whole field of difference between what they’re describing and Vanya ending life on Earth, but then Klaus sits up straight and looks sharply between the air to his right and Luther.

“Ben says,” Klaus starts, voice balanced between confusion and suspicion, “that we need to ask Luther how Vanya got back to the Academy. How she got in the cage.” The rest turn to look at him in near comical synchronization.

“That’s a good point,” Diego agrees in a dangerously neutral tone, “she was already there when you brought us down.” He fingers one of his knives and follows up with, “She was unconscious when we arrived.” Luther says nothing. He is not sorry exactly, but he knows there is no good way to explain. They are still too much in denial.

“Ben says if you don’t tell them he-slash-I will,” Klaus threatens.

Luther clenches his jaw, “She came to the Academy on her own. I heard her calling from the entryway. After speaking with her, I made a judgement call.” The thing that they don’t understand is this: the fact that she didn’t mean to do it, doesn’t actually make it better. It certainly doesn’t make her safer.

_Additional Fact #21: There was, in fact, one thing Luther liked about Vanya, though he would never have been able to articulate it and barely even realized he thought it. He was Number One, Dad’s right hand, strong and sure, a leader. He knew his role perfectly and took pride in its performance. The problem with most of his other siblings is that they did not. Two, Four, Five, and Six all struggled with their place, were all failures in one way or another. Three was perfect while she was here, but she left when she could no longer see the Truth of their mission. Seven, however, was almost as perfect a Number Seven as he was a Number One. Where he was big and strong, she was small and ordinary. And she certainly came to understand her place in the family. When the book came out, it was the first time he ever thought he might have been wrong about her. He didn’t worry about it too much though. What harm could she do either way. He didn't think about it again until the day she came to the house with Allison’s blood on her hands, and he saw a stranger where Seven had once stood._

Klaus stands suddenly. He looks furious and somehow otherworldly, almost like at the theater when Ben showed up. “I think you'll find you left a few details out there, Luther,” he growls. Diego goes to back Klaus up.

“What. Did. You. Do. Exactly,” each word accompanied by the flip of a knife. Allison is still seated looking at him betrayed somehow. Five waits completely still for the answer.

“Don’t feel like sharing with the class?” Klaus grins viciously, “Well then do allow me. See, if you hadn’t guessed, Luther wasn’t the only one who heard Vanya calling. Ben was there too and he saw the whole sordid thing.” Klaus pauses, leaning towards him expectant. His laughter is manic when Luther stays silent. Klaus nods, “well looks like Vanya brought herself to the Academy in tears, full of apologies, immediately asking for Allison. No powers either. Not a single light fixture a’shakin’. And when our number one brother here comes down first thing he does is ask what happened. Vanya, sweet, simple Vanya trusted him enough to own up to it. Didn’t even think to deny it, took responsibility for her whole mess. So naturally, after that, Van’s biggest brother was gonna forgive her, right? Here comes Luther from on high, welcoming her back into the fold. He even says to her, he says this is her home, which is very touching. And then, and then, the big cuddle bug, he opens his arms real wide for a hug," Klaus pauses, just for the drama and Luther wants to hit something. "Well, look at me spoiling. Anyone wanna take a guess what happened next?” Klaus is vibrating with anger. He’s been getting closer to Luther with each sentence of his story. When he speaks again, all the jocularity is gone. He leans right into Luther’s face for the second time in five minutes.

Completely still he finishes, “He hugged her. He hugged her and she was so damn grateful to be forgiven she was caught completely off guard when he started squeezing. He strangled her until she was unconscious and then dragged her body down to the dungeon Daddy built special just for her. Then he dragged us down there too. Not too take a vote or anything halfway so decent. No he just wanted to make sure we were all complicit in the nasty business.” Klaus leans back some and shoots him a charming smile. Innocently he asks, “I miss anything there, Lu-Lu?”

Klaus steps backwards so he’s once again standing rank with their four other siblings—he can say four this time because he knows Ben is included in this. Allison has her hands over her mouth, minutely shaking her head back and forth. Diego has bypassed anger and gone straight for looking nauseated. Five’s actually slack jawed. Klaus is still standing in the middle of them, slightly in front, and oddly protective.

“How could you?” murmurs Five. And Jesus, even Five is going to try and take the moral high ground with him now. But he looks at him, and for the first time Five actually kind of looks and sounds thirteen. It pierces something in him.

“Pogo had just told me the truth about her,” he answers quietly.

“Her name is Vanya,” Klaus corrects quickly, “you’ve met her, she’s our sister, in fact. Big boy panties today I’m afraid, you gotta say her name now.”

Luther sighs through his nose, “When Allison woke up the first thing, the very first thing she wrote was to tell me about Vanya’s powers.”

“Don’t,” Allison warns thickly, “don’t drag me into this.” Luther opens his mouth, but Diego cuts him off.

“If you say dangerous one more time, man, so help me. Vanya didn’t kill Allison, but with you? I can promise I’m not gonna have her restraint.”

“How could you?” repeats Five. He shuffles a little past Klaus and looks up at him. Luther thinks Five might actually be on the verge of tears, which is the craziest thing he’s ever seen. “No,” he continues, “this isn’t just about Vanya being her our sister. It isn’t just about how you should have known her or trusted her. This is—” he stops speaking, shakes his head, then explodes:

“She’s one of us! She has powers exactly like we do! Don’t you understand? Don’t you care, I mean— After everything, after EVERYTHING Dad ever did to us, you had a chance. You had a chance to do something better. A chance to- to be better for at least one of us, and this is what you chose. This is what you did! You put her in a box exactly like he did to us, and you thought what? It was going to actually help? What was the plan after? I just—" he throws his hands up in frustration.

Luther looks at Five sadly, “You were the one who said we couldn’t give her a chance to fight back.” Five steps back like he was hit.

“I said that after,” he groans, “this was before. Before and… you could have done literally anything but what you did, but you chose a cage anyway.” Luther catches on immediately.

“This is not my fault. The apocalypse is not my fault.”

“Fault?” Five parrots, “Fault? Jesus, Luther, how old are you? That’s not— That’s not,” he sighs sounding old again, “It’s not _just_ your fault, Luther, but that doesn't mean you aren't a part of this.” Five runs a hand across his face and turns away. Allison and Diego won’t even look at him. Klaus looks thoughtful.

Surprisingly there is no accusation when Klaus asks, “What’s the worst thing Dad ever did to you?” Klaus isn’t really looking at any of them, so he thinks the question is for the room at large.

Even still, “What?” demands Luther.

“Oh come on,” Klaus tries for a smile, but can pull it together in time, “we all know Dad was an absolutely sadistic asshole. Gets worse every day. There’s no question he did all sorts of cruel and unusual things to each of us.” The room stays silent, causing Klaus to huff. “Alright, not like I can’t take a good guess at some of yours. I was there, and Vanya’s book actually ended up filling in a lot of holes. Huh, it’s almost like she knew enough to pay attention.

“Well the worst thing Dad ever did to me was lock me in the Mausoleum about a mile away from here. Knew I was afraid of ghosts, so, you know, what’s a bit of immersion therapy between child and his jailer. Didn’t work, obviously. In the beginning it was during the day and only for a few hours at a time. By the time it finally stopped, he was pulling me out of bed and leaving me over night.” Klaus forces a chuckle, “I can tell yous guys, it was B-A-D. Ghosts are always loud, but you ain’t never met nobody angrier than the stiffs stuck in graves that people never visit unless your Reginald Hargreecves and you're hoping to scar one of your kids for life.” Klaus does a little bow, and shoots a little “why thank you, Benjamin” to the air. They are all looking at Klaus in horror.

Without looking at anyone, Diego bites out, “fish tanks for hours to test how long I could go without breathing.” Klaus whistles.

“He used to tie me up in increasingly dangerous situations to test how I would jump under pressure. A burning building once. He put me in a safe so I could learn how to jump when my mobility was hindered,” adds Five with a frown.

Klaus pats Five, who looks only a little furious at the gesture. “Ben says he was locked up too. You know with that and Vanya, I’m starting to think cramming kids into boxes really got Dad off, huh?” After a minute, voice very soft, “Allison?” She shakes her head, and Klaus nods in understanding. 

“What about you, Looney Tunes?” A beat before Klaus follows with, “Still not in the mood for sharing? That’s ok. I can take a stab at it. It might not small and dark like a box, but I bet the moon was just as lonely.”

“What exactly is your point, Klaus?” Luther shouts, far beyond the point of frustration. Klaus gives him a long searching look. He must not like what he finds because he frowns.

“My point, brother dearest, is simple, so you better be listening,” he answers completely serious, “the absolute worst thing that Dad ever did to me was lock me in a mausoleum starting at the age of nine. It was cruel and wrong. And I can tell you with complete, utter certainty that if I had Vanya’s powers one of those times he locked me away? I would have brought that place down faster than you can imagine. I would have brought this whole house down too, if I thought it meant no one would ever put me in a place like that again. I think, if you look down in that bruised, little heart of yours, you’d realize that’s about the only reasonable response to a situation like that. I think a survey would tell you most people would agree.

“Vanya’s not here. You brought it up like that was supposed to prove she was guilty, all while knowing damn well why she wouldn’t want to step foot over that threshold. I think that officially means you don’t get a single inch to decide how we’re going to handle things. Any disagreements from the family?” he pauses, “No? Well settled then. Luther, love, why don’t you just go find a corner to sit in so you can think about what you’ve done.” With maximum flourish, Klaus throws himself onto the nearest couch to punctuate his speech.

Diego huffs, looking a little proud, “Yeah, what Klaus said,” and sits on a chair with far more restraint. Allison looks at Luther, opens her mouth, and then closes it with a little head shake. She turns away to take her own seat. Five just turns his back, but continues to stand.

“I would like to find Vanya,” Allison says quietly, “she shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“It’s the finding, liebling, the finding that’s the problem,” answers Klaus.

“I don’t think we should count on her coming to the Academy anymore. Fuck knows I wouldn’t.” Diego shudders.

Five huffs, “Vanya might though,” he shakes himself a little. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll set up a rotation around her apartment and theater. Start asking neighbors or maybe the other members of the orchestra if they’ve seen her and if they know any places she might go.” 

Luther stands up once they are fully immersed in planning. He leaves the room just as Diego wonders if it’s worth getting his detective friend to put out a BOLO for Vanya or if that’s just inviting too much trouble. They do not notice him leaving. He shuffles back to his room, going out of his way to avoid having to look at the main stairs. When he gets to his bed he sits down and stares at his hands for a long time. Finally, he lays down doing his best to think of nothing at all.

7.

She walks and walks and walks. She has known this city her whole life, but it feels alive and suddenly new. Or perhaps this is just the first time she has ever been alive with it.

Any minute now she knows the stars will start to sing again. Once she hears that, she thinks she will finally be ready for this all to end.


	2. Part II.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her family finds Vanya the last place they expected and probably the first place they should have looked.
> 
> "It is an absolute gut punch realizing it is increasingly likely that the best way to stop the apocalypse will turn out to be nothing more than just getting out of Vanya’s way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Lovelies! So Part II has absolutely gotten away from me (what do you mean I'm 38k words deep and I've only just begun the scene this whole fic was supposed to be about? that's crazy talk). As a result, I have decided to take the better part of valor and split the chapter in two pieces. Good news? The back half is already 2/3 of the way through so it shouldn't be too long of a wait.
> 
> I own nothing, mistakes are my own
> 
> story title from "Shake It Out" by Florence + the Machine
> 
> as mood music please check out my Vanya playlist on spotify. It starts with child Vanya, goes through the events of the show, and carries through to the end of this fic. it can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ayRVXvSGmsenF7PGYWt2i

5.

They are within 48 hours of when they last experienced the end of the world. Vanya is still missing. He has heard nothing from the commission so far, but that means absolutely nothing. He is becoming increasingly paranoid about The Handler popping up without warning. The briefcase sits untouched in his room. It’s a good insurance policy, but he also knows it is far more traceable than his own jumps.

His family is also, incidentally, imploding. Luther is absent, Diego is angry, Allison is frantic, Klaus is morose, and Ben is fucking dead. ( _Five is twitchy, he is unwilling to speculate any further on how his siblings view him beyond that fact._ ) It is funny in the absolute worst way imaginable that Vanya has never once commanded so much of her family’s attention at the same time and she is not even around to benefit from it. Klaus, who understands the dynamics of being constantly sidelined better than anyone still present at the Academy, had taken to saluting Vanya for the “absolute power move” of becoming unreachable at precisely the moment the family decided she was actually worth reaching.

_Character Aside #1: Klaus’s humor is becoming more brittle by the second (it’s in perfect balance with his dwindling chances of staying sober). They all have their own theories on Vanya’s current condition, but Klaus is becoming more and more convinced this is a simple life-and-death situation now and not an end of the world one. The mental sketch he has made of just how far his sister had been pushed into playing the Apocalypse Suite is grim indeed. If there is one thing Klaus understands it’s desperation. There’s your brain on drugs and then there’s your brain on fear. He pictures Vanya as a child crying whenever they got hurt; in a blink she is pure, deadly starshine; he can only guess at the last piece of that kind of a triptych. Thus he has taken to walking the halls of his childhood home with eyes shut tight against the possibility of seeing a new-old ghost._

They do not talk about the apocalypse anymore. Howard Jenkins is dead and the possibility of Vanya’s concert disappeared when she stopped going to rehearsals. A conversation with a cellist revealed Vanya was third chair, so her becoming important enough to be on posters must have been a recent development anyway. Five repeats these facts like a talisman with the exact kind of skepticism he would have for anything so superstitious. Based on where the bodies fell, he knows the apocalypse he landed in was only kind of the apocalypse his family caused in the theater. He won’t know if he is or isn’t in a third apocalypse until is is or isn’t happening. It occurs to him for the first time that even April 1 might not be the guarantee he used to feel it was.

He has a feeling though. Optimism a is new and more fragile feeling than his old childhood arrogance, but maybe more promising in the long run. Still—

It is an absolute gut punch realizing it is increasingly likely that the best way to stop the apocalypse will turn out to be nothing more than just getting the fuck out of Vanya’s way.

He would like to see her though. Very much. Years and years ago it had been Five and V against the world. He scoffs. That’s an apocalypse joke now. He never should have left.

He’s been drinking coffee instead of sleeping lately. Somewhere around 3AM last night he’d had the strangest conviction that their reality was nothing more than one of the more moral episodes of the Twilight Zone. Turns out the fate of humanity all rests on whether local family can actually be nice to one little girl. The scripts not finished yet, but Five is already bored waiting for the credits. An answer, whatever the answer, is all he’s looking for.

Allison has been channeling her worry in a lot of weird places over the last three days, so Five is positive she will be at his door any minute now to drag him down to lunch. It’s the only thing they do as a group these days. Even Luther shows his face. It’s in the top ten of the most miserable things he’s ever experienced (an already extremely unpleasant list). But he recognizes the importance of comparing notes on Sister Watch, and also, maybe, possibly reminding them that their family is what they’re supposed to be saving in the first place. Their family blew up the moon, and one of these days Five just knows he’s going to start asking himself why they’re all still bothering.

Allison’s knock is right on time.

_Character Aside #2: For Allison it’s like this. After her sister cut her throat she looked deep inside herself and found that not only did she still love Vanya, she also trusted her. It might not be reasonable, but when she thinks of that night one of her clearest memories is the ghastly smile Jenkins had as he tore her sister away. It was easy after seeing that to take all of her fear and pain and put it on him and him alone. She woke up at The Academy, was able to communicate to Luther what their new priority was, and then let herself enjoy one bright moment away from the pain imagining her brothers would take care of everything by the time she woke up. She was too disoriented to think about how Luther might interpret her words. And she had no way of knowing that Pogo was waiting in shadow to (accidentally?) twist Luther’s fear into something deadly. Since then she dreams of a world in which she chose her words more carefully. Of a world in which she had gotten Vanya out of the cage. Of a world in which her brothers had trusted her enough to let her go in alone. (She has nightmares of the world where anyone but her had the gun.) In this world she settles on willing Vanya’s safe return so they can start again. She looks deep inside of herself and the love and trust are right where she left them._

They walk to the dining table in dispirited silence. On their rotations, Allison had taken the lion’s share of apartment duty, which has primarily resulted in reports on how seemingly lifeless Vanya’s life had become in recent years. Today, however, it has apparently resulted in one bright spot, as she is quick to tell all of them when they take their seats with the others. Allison got the chance to meet several of Vanya’s students, and turns out Vanya is really good with kids if the affection in the voices of both the students and parents mean anything. It is unspeakably gratifying to realize there were other people in the world missing their sister besides them.

Klaus makes a joke about how most of the kids must be about Vanya’s height. It’s a bubbly thought. Five’s been to the apartment so it’s painfully easy to imagine ultra tiny Vanya wrangling ultra tiny children into playing “Twinkle Little Star” or some other equally inane song. He can even guess at the small, patient smiles she must give them, because he’d received enough as a child on the days she agreed to be lab assistant. Vanya had been good at asking the right questions when one of his equations started to overwhelm him. He could use some of that insight now. Just like that Five is sad again.

Allison is finished, but Diego doesn’t have much to report.

_Character Aside #3: Diego knows part of why he and the police academy didn’t work out is that when he’s stressed he doesn’t have a lot of patience for some of the quieter legwork often required in an investigation. Vanya’s case is proving to be almost nothing but quiet legwork. In the end, Diego decided to tell Patch about Harold Jenkins’s body. Unofficially, he also told her that the asshole had been in an abusive relationship with his currently missing sister. He doesn’t say the rest, but he doesn’t need to. Patch has always been quick. The others don’t really agree with what he did, but he’s a day into this when he realizes the worst possible scenario is the police finding the body, making the easy connection to Vanya on forensics alone, and them bringing her in for questioning before her siblings find her. He remembers what happened to him after Patch. In this scenario, he is positive the world would end in a holding cell or tiny interrogation room. Also, and maybe this is the vigilante talking, it feels absolutely unfair that Vanya should ever come close to legal repercussions for killing a guy that they know went out of his way to target her. Patch has quietly been pulling strings to look for Vanya, while somehow keeping her name out the Jenkins investigation. There’s no way it’s legal and Diego really fucking loves Eudora for it._

_Character Aside #4: Seeing as his sister has stubbornly stayed missing, Diego has been channeling a lot of his energy into trying to understand the Harold Jenkins side of the apocalypse. He looks through his entire criminal record again. He breaks back into the creepy attic. He’s gone to Allison several times to go over all of what she observed of the guy and what Vanya had said about their relationship. The picture he ends up with is so dark he ends up destroying a punching bag back at the gym. The criminal element has always been his territory (Klaus had the streets too, but in a way Diego never let himself think about for too long). It is physically painful to realize that something like this could break into his family when he wasn’t looking. The worst part is that Jenkins may be dead, but this injury is going to hang over them for a long time, maybe even forever. Hell Vana hasn’t even surfaced yet. Diego has seen the after effects of this kind of abuse; there’s not a single person in this house close to qualified to help with it. (Klaus seems closest to understanding this particular danger, and, again, Diego refuses to think of why.) They have to find her. They have to find her soon._

The conversation wilts away to nothing, as it’s been doing a lot lately. It bizarrely reminds Five of their shared childhood when talking at the table was absolutely forbidden. They even sit in the same seats, which he thinks is actually a bit sick. He doesn’t try too hard to remember the tapes that Hargreeves used to play, because that will bring him too close to remembering the single biggest mistake of his life. Such remembrances of youth do not make him feel young. In fact, being around his siblings just makes him realize more than ever that he is old, old, old. Luther more than anyone else.

He thinks what Luther did is likely in the category of the unforgivable, and is only technically mitigated by the fact that it won’t be happening in their current timeline. Five had been an excellent assassin, all cold and calculating. He also knows he is tends towards insensitivity to others. These two things must mean he has often been unintentionally cruel. ( _He has a very small list of people about whom he cares enough to try to make amends_.) Intentional cruelty is another matter entirely. Luther made a choice the night Vanya came to The Academy. Five understands where the choice came from. He knew Luther from before, and he knows what living in this house does to a person. But a why cannot erase a what. Especially since a choice represents intention. Even if it was a split second fear response, he had many opportunities to undo it. He got other people involved. They told him it was wrong. He did not stop. That is a whole series of intentions. A chain of cruelty.

The person Luther wronged was Vanya. Perhaps that ultimately means only she can judge Luther’s actions. Five’s honestly not sure. For one thing, the final consequences of his choice ended up directly and indirectly hurting a lot of people. Shouldn’t they have a say? And even with keeping it solely about what happened to Vanya, don’t the people who care about her have a right to be angry on her behalf? What are the rules when the people who care about both Luther and Vanya theoretically overlap. What are they to do with the fact that Luther maintains he did what he did on their behalf? Further, believing that she really was going to end the world, is it possible to argue that it would have been negligent to behave differently? Is that not essentially what they had decided at the theater? But that was after, after, and this was before. And Luther still doesn’t understand that distinction. Sometimes Luther looks like he might even do it again.

_Character Aside #5: In a lot of ways the last few days at The Academy have felt like the moon to Luther. He would have laughed at the thought a week ago. But what has this time been if not more self-imposed isolation from the people he loves most, all while waiting for word (judgement) from an emotionally distant family member? Before, Dad had to die to bring him back (the world was ending). Now, he has no idea what Vanya is going to do (the world isn’t ending)._

Five is busy calculating how much longer he has to stay down here when Grace walks through the room humming quietly. Pogo brought her back online just over a day ago. Things have been really weird with both of the remaining adult figures from their childhood. Five missed the whole Mom being murdered the first time around, so at least he’s not living with that mess. In what has to be some kind of family record for emotional maturity, Diego admitted he was the one that took her offline after the fight. Maybe they really are trying to change. Since Diego's action ended up being completely consequence free, everyone has decided to mostly move on. There are more pressing concerns now. No one, to his knowledge, has questioned either Pogo or Grace about hiding Vanya’s powers. For him at least he isn’t even going to pretend it’s anything other than cowardice. There is simply no time or space for a conversation with that much emotional baggage right now.

( _Also: Vanya murdered the two of them, but she didn’t, but when she did, maybe they deserved it, but that’s not fair either, and it never happened anyway. It’s weird and more than a little screwed up, but that’s the Hargreeves way_.)

Diego greets Grace and she smiles warmly at them without breaking stride. Until, that is, she inexplicably pauses in the middle arch leading into the front hall. She doesn’t turn around.

“Mom?” Allison tries hesitantly. Grace turns around with her usual megawatt smile, but says nothing. It’s weird even by their normal animatronic mom standards. “Is everything ok?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she replies with enthusiasm. But then. Once you learn them, it’s not hard to see the signs of Grace’s internal processor trying to work through programming that she does not like (which is actually just to say a program that conflicts with another program since Five has never been sure on how evolved Grace really is, but then he left at 13). Sometimes you can almost see a shutter in her eyes like on a camera lens when a conclusion is finally reached. The tell tale moment passes before Grace looks up and brightly asks, “I was wondering if you have seen Vanya recently?”

There is a painful beat of silence until Diego gently reminds her, “Vanya is missing, Mom, remember?” Five is relieved actually. He was a little worried there that they had forgotten to tell her.

“She _was_ missing, silly,” Grace chides. “But then she arrived last night.” Five waits for the explosion and is not disappointed. Diego, Allison, and Klaus are all up immediately. Two seats away from him Luther remains seated, silently repeating what Grace had just said. Five stays where he is too, which is how he knows he must really be feeling his age today; normally he’d be halfway through a jump by now.

The thought that Vanya has been in The Academy for hours without anyone knowing is doing something awful to him. Back in their father’s day this kind of thing would have been impossible what with all the surveillance tapes. He vaguely recalls the first night after they jumped back, and the liberatory feeling they all felt disconnecting the last of the cameras. It was a gesture meant to represent them finally living outside of their father’s control (and something to feel nice about since their preliminary search for Vanya had yielded no results), but he realizes that the middle of a missing person’s case might not have actually been the right time for it. No regrets about ripping down his (Five’s) portrait though.

They had been watching the house obviously, and someone was always in the entryway or living room, but here’s a stupid thing that Five is only just remembering. Even if she used the front door last time, Vanya always preferred the basement, storefront entrance when it came to sneaking in or out of the house. In his defense, she hadn’t done as much sneaking out as the others before he left so it makes sense that it’s a detail that slipped his mind. It’s close enough to the main rooms that someone probably should have heard, only isn’t the whole point that Vanya is really great at being quiet? Clearly Grace _did_ hear because— 

“She asked me not to say anything. I’m looking for her now, because she never came to get any kind of breakfast, and,” they watch Grace’s smile dim, “she did not look well.” There are a thousand things that could mean; an alarm goes off in Five’s head for every single one of them. At last he joins the swarm surrounding their mother. 

He does not ask where Vanya is because Grace already made it clear she doesn’t know. Instead, “Where did she go when she got here?”

“We spoke briefly, but I left her in the downstairs kitchen. She was very concerned about not waking anyone.” She absolutely need not have been. Five had definitely been awake, but several floors above in his own room. Diego, he’s pretty sure, had been out searching the streets. He thinks Allison was the one out in the living room last night, but he’s not sure on timing. Luther and Klaus may have been asleep, but none of them have been looking particularly rested lately.

It occurs to him that if she was on the basement level, she would have been very close to Pogo’s room. If she was avoiding him, that would indicate a level of awareness that Five finds encouraging. Plus, she had been able to hold a conversation with mom.

With zero verbal agreement, they are already moving into the front hall to begin the search. Klaus reigns them in a little by informing them that Ben started looking immediately after Mom said their sister was here. That is really handy now that he thinks about it. A few beats and still nothing means they are once again about to scatter when Klaus straightens enough to add a few inches to his height. His eyes are trained on a doorway across from them that leads to one of the smaller, servant staircases.

“She’s where?” Klaus sounds icy. Or it might be more than that. Five knows Klaus has been practicing with his powers, and it’s been doing weird things to room temperature the last few days. His brother goes completely still, before throwing himself in the direction he’d been looking.

“Klaus!” Allison shouts. He stops and turns to them looking grief struck. It’s enough that even Five feels scared. Klaus rapidly inhales three times, before releasing his breath on a long exhale.

“Our sister who cried when we stepped on ants,” Diego and Luther flinch like they recognize the line, “woke up with memories of ending life on Earth.” Klaus says it slow like he’s worried they aren’t gonna get it. He also sounds sad, but not surprised. “How do you think you’d be feeling?” He doesn’t explain further, just turns and continues on. Either Allison actually does get it or she doesn’t need to because she immediately starts following him. Diego definitely does get it a few seconds later and takes after them with nothing more than a quiet, “Shit.” Not to be outdone Five goes too, as does Luther a few seconds after that.

It only clicks when he is standing in front of an elevator he has never seen before. Oh. OH.

( _He never asked them to show him the cell. He didn’t see how it would help and it’s not like he wanted to see it._ ) 

It is very obvious in retrospect. He thought— what had he thought? It’s an important question. He was thinking she was probably angry. He imagined a thousand apologies. He prepared for the possibility of a fight. He remembers popping onto the wreckage of their recently destroyed house, looking at the dazed expressions of the siblings whose bodies he had buried ( _still alive, thank you, somehow_ ). It had clicked in an instant. The one sibling whose demise he never figured out; the one who had been missing for days. Standing there, he had pictured the hurricane left behind in Harold Jenkins kitchen ( _so many knives_ ) and mapped it onto the destruction around him. All he had seen then was Vanya’s rage.

He has been making so many assumptions about her.

 _Once, Five knew Vanya better than anyone in the whole world._ He has been sure this entire time that he didn’t anymore. He knew he had changed, but after what she had done it seemed obvious that she had too. ( _She shook her head at him the morning he left. He ran out anyway. He looked away for the length of single jump that accidentally lasts forty-five years._ ) They came back to fix her, that’s what he’d said. Make her what she was before. Why has he been so convinced this entire time that she wasn’t already? ( _He went to her before anyone else. She took care of his wound, and begged him to stay. He ran out anyway. She went looking for him the next morning, challenged his assumptions because she knew he wasn’t making sense with how little he had explained. He ran out anyway. He looked away for the length of time it takes to end the world._ )

The elevator ride is long. This isn’t beneath the house. This is beneath the world.

It’s a long walk down a corridor to get to his sister’s personal punishment. Five doesn’t jump. For once he is not bursting to reach a conclusion.

With supreme detachment he notes the way the walls are simultaneously being pushed and pulled. He can see dust and dirt pulsing around him to a beat he can’t hear. The air is rushing around, half wind, and half barely-there sheets of white energy that remind him a bit of Allison’s rumors. The shaking is more intense once he steps into the chamber at the far end away from the elevator. The darkness draws his eyes to a partly open door with a large window and a turning wheel like an old fashioned safe. He can’t make out much beyond it, but he can see spikes. He is horrified, until is mind catches up and he realizes they’re foam. An anechoic chamber, of course. Sound-proof. Sound-waves. The violin. Stupid. It’s so obvious once you _know_.

He walks closer to the chamber before registering the noise now behind him and to his right. It’s a small miracle, he supposes, that at least she hadn’t placed herself in the chamber itself. He turns to see Vanya, sickly pale in the semi-darkness, but not glowing ( _yet_ ). She is tucked into a corner, back against the wall. Her head’s down, knees pulled up, elbows tucked in, hands clenched tightly in her hair. She has made herself as small as she knows how. At the angle she’s placed herself in, he cannot make out her face through the shadows. Her whole body is shuddering in a way that looks particularly painful. She is whispering something, but he cannot make it out from where he stands with his hands fisted in his pockets.

Allison and Klaus are closest, both on the floor, but neither dare touch her. Allison is sitting on her legs with one hand hovering over Vanya’s arm while the other supports her weight so she can lean closer. Klaus has folded himself into a compressed crouch that nearly mirrors Vanya, with his head perched on his hands that rest on his knees. Diego is frozen, standing a few feet behind them with a complex emotion on his face. Five quietly moves past him and leans his weight forward a little. Luther is standing somewhere further behind Diego like he’s only half welcome. He cannot see what Ben is doing, but he has no doubt he’s there.

_Character Aside #6: One thinks, she doesn’t look dangerous right now._

_Character Aside #7: Two thinks, I don’t know how to fix this._

_Character Aside #8: Three thinks, we’ve found her, thank god, I can help her now._

_Character Aside #9: Four thinks, we have to get her out of here._

( _Character Aside #10: Six thinks, I would give anything to hug my sister._ )

_Character Aside #11: Seven thinks, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

Now that he’s closer he can hear her two word chant. The silent rush of tears take him by surprise and feel too warm on his face with the chill in the air. He can’t remember the last time he cried. ( _That’s a lie. He allowed himself to cry in the apocalypse exactly twice._ ) Helplessness, however, is not a new feeling. His shoulders are curling for a jump without his permission. It’s an act of extreme will power to stay where he is.The moment stretches so long Five can’t understand why it hasn’t broken yet.

_Character Aside #12: Klaus remembers what Five said a few nights ago. This is chance. This is maybe their one chance to give at least one of Dad’s broken toy soldiers something better than they have ever gotten. Something they deserved. He can do this, he promises, he has to._

Finally, _finally_ , Klaus speaks with a voice that’s infinitely gentle. “Vanya, how long have you been down here?” He still doesn’t reach out to touch her. For a painfully long time it seems like she couldn't or wouldn’t acknowledge the question, but then the broken apologies stop and without changing her position she jerkily shakes her head. The air changes when she stops whispering. Five wonders if he is the only one that nearly falls forward with the pressure suddenly cleared.

“You don’t know?” offers Klaus. She nods tightly. “That makes sense. Kinda hard to tell time down here,” he hums, “Can you tell me where you were before?” Vanya takes a deep breath and the walls shake just fractionally less.

“Walking,” she mutters to the floor. Klaus repeats the word back to her. She nods, “I was trying to hear… it was easier to listen when I was walking.”

“Walking helps?” another nod. “Your powers,” Klaus takes a fortifying breath when her hands clench violently in her hair, “they’re sound based? You need to listen to things?”

“Not need,” she chokes, “I’m not trying. I just do. I hear- I hear- I don’t know. I don’t—”

Klaus must make some kind of connection. “Oh,” he breaths out surprised, “things have become very loud for you, haven’t they?” She nods. “Oh, Vanya.” Klaus quickly swipes away a tear. He shuffles closer, waits to see if she’ll react, and then very carefully places a hand on the arm closest to him. Her powers stop immediately, in shock if Five had to guess, before starting again at a slightly more sedate level.

“This is ok?” a long pause before a nod. Klaus gets an inch closer. “My powers get pretty loud too, you know?”

“The ghosts.”

“The ghosts,” he agrees. “You could have— Vanya, you know you could have come to us for help, don’t you?” She shakes her head and the air starts moving even faster.

“Couldn’t,” her voice, louder than before, is absolutely wrecked. “Can’t. Not safe.”

Klaus has to shout over the wind, “Not safe? From us, you mean?” A head shake. “We’re not safe from you?” Vanya pulls her arms even closer to herself and breaks contact with Klaus. She begins to rock back and forth as the air gets heavy again. This time Five can actually see the waves she’s generating.

He realizes it’s an attempt to push them away when she shouts, “You need to leave!” It’s enough that Klaus falls into the wall closest to him. Five starts doing calculations to figure out how quickly he can get them all out long enough for her to calm down and then they can try again.

“Vanya!” Allison yells back. She forces herself forward. She places both hands on top of Vanya’s. “Vanya,” she tries again, “I know you don’t want to hurt us! And we aren’t going to leave. Not without _you_! So that means— that means— you have to breathe, Vanya. If you don’t want to hurt us I need you to take a deep breath with me, ok?” Allison demonstrates while bringing her arms down so they’re draped exactly over Vanya’s. She is careful, though, to keep that their only point of contact. Excruciating seconds pass before Vanya starts trying to calm down using Allison’s instructions. The wind dies down to something more manageable. Allison holds her position for another few beats before pushing back satisfied. Allison leaves her hands where they are so that she can gently try to free Vanya’s from her hair.

_Character Aside #13: This, Allison knows, is the do-over she’s wanted since the beginning. Maybe even literally, though without a clock she can’t say for sure how close they are to when the fight at the cabin started. Finding Vanya down here instead, knowing her sister has voluntarily traded one nightmare for another, it breaks her heart. It’s a bruising feeling that radiates everywhere. She cannot make a mistake this time. Vanya looks so broken, so fragile that Allison can’t even remember the possibility of the house coming down. There will be no hesitation this time. There will be no rumors either. There will only, finally, be the truth between them._

“I’m not afraid of you, Vanya. I trust you.” Allison smiles, repeats, “I trust you.” She manages to free the right hand and immediately laces it with her own. “You just calmed down. You didn’t hurt us.” She frees the left hand and does the same, bringing both of their joined hands closer to the ground in a more natural position. Vanya’s hair shifts enough to see the tear tracks.

“I did hurt you,” whispers Vanya.

Allison tuts, “Vanya, can you look at me, please. _Please._ ” At first Vanya tucks her head even tighter, but maybe she starts remembering how Allison almost always gets her way, because ever so slowly she looks up at their sister. Allison gasps.

Five notices three things immediately when he finally sees his sister’s face: 1) Vanya looks awful, puffy and bloodshot from crying and, he has no doubt, exhaustion; 2) there is the faintest beginnings of a silver ring around her pupils; and 3) there is an impressive set of bruises ringing one side of her jaw and corresponding cheekbone.

Five had not given much thought to Harold Jenkins’s death in terms of the exact how ( _both times_ ). His profession gave dead bodies a pretty boring, every day quality. He could read a murder scene like a not particularly interesting kids book. Harold Jenkins being dead was very significant to him, but Five had only ever cared about the effect of it, not the cause. The first time, it had taken him awhile to even connect the possibility of murder to Vanya. The second time he accepted it so fast it never required additional thought. If anyone had asked, he would have _supposed_ that Vanya had gone out of her way to kill him, but ran into a bit of trouble when she arrived at his house. He had thought of self defense as a possible cover without really thinking about what that might actually mean. For the first time, it is fully occurring to him that Vanya may never have meant to kill Harold Jenkins at all.

Even worse—he hadn’t even allowed the possibility before now—what if instead of having to go to his house that morning, she had woken up there? What if that’s where _Five_ dropped her? What if he had accidentally plucked her from one hell only to place her back in the one that she had already escaped from? Five runs a shaky hand across his face ( _whether local family can actually be nice to one little girl_ ). Behind him, Diego chokes.

_Character Aside #14: Diego, of course, had given a great deal of thought to Harold Jenkins’s death. Ever since he started working with Patch on this he had heard the word “domestic” bandied around. He’s always thought that was an ugly way of putting it long before it was personal (well actually abuse in homes has always felt way too personal to Diego). The confirmation of it on Vanya’s own skin still manages to shock him. His sister has more bruises on her face than the last time he had seen her in either timeline (than he has ever seen on her) is the thought that echoes through his mind. There is every possibility there are more he cannot see since she’s wearing one of her typical, slightly too big button ups. He pictures the crime scene and the familiar rush of anger is on him in an instance. He had already suspected, but he knows now that Jenkins got better than he deserved both times._

Allison lets go of one of Vanya’s hands to lightly brush the bruises on her face. Vanya doesn’t even react, too intent in her scrutiny of her sister. Allison smiles grimly and brings the hand she is still holding to her own throat. “You never hurt me, see. I’m fine.” Vanya joins her other hand to Allison’s neck and closes her eyes. It doesn’t stop the tears from leaking. Vanya flings herself the rest of the way towards Allison.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I never meant to. Please believe me,” said through sobs is met with Allison’s fervent, “I know, I know. It was my fault too. But I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” Five remembers Ben/Klaus telling them that Vanya had asked to see Allison when she came to the Academy last time. 

After a shared look with Allison, Klaus crawls closer to the two sisters, placing light hands on Vanya’s back. Tentatively taking this as a denouement, Five sighs and lets himself slip to the ground. He is close enough to reach out if he needs to, but is content to just be close for now. Diego moves to Klaus’s side and drops to the floor as well. He places one hand on Klaus and shoots Five a look more complicated than simple relief. He knows the feeling. Luther has moved into a crouch at least, though still outside of the circle. A glance at his face shows grief still mixed with some uncertainty. Five rolls his eyes and looks away. Someone will have to talk to him eventually, and Five, completely exhausted by the prospect, is going to work very hard to make sure it’s not him.

He tilts his head back to the ceiling and wonders if this room is always this dark, while refusing to imagine his sister at any age stuck here. He spots cracks in several of the light fixtures and just knows Vanya must have accidentally done it when she arrived. Thinking about it hurts. He tries to focus on something, anything that isn’t Vanya willingly bringing herself here. He is not successful. The ache of it is turning vicious.

He looks towards the huddle in the corner. Vanya is much calmer now, the power in the air almost nonexistent, and she is pushing herself up and away from Allison. Watching, Five feels furious.

“Why did you come down here, Vanya?” comes out a lot more tired than it sounded in his head. Vanya turns to look at him ( _still all exhaustion, white rings, and bruises_ ) and it cuts him. He is almost certain it’s the first time they’ve made eye contact since she checked on him in his room on the first morning. He imagines time folding in on itself between this moment and that one, stretching and compressing all at once.

“You know why,” she replies softly and then shudders.

“No I don’t,” he throws back feeling reckless ( _he does, they all do_ ). She sighs.

He doesn’t say _“You are already showing more control than I was expecting”_ or 

“ _You should never have been put down here in the first place_ ” or

“ _I’m sorry for what Dad did to you_ ” or

“ _I never should have left_ ” or

“ _I’m sorry we tried to kill you_ ” or

“ _You don’t have to keep paying for being alive”,_

but he does say, “We should leave.” She hums. “You too.” She frowns and looks away.

“You aren’t staying down here,” he bites out. 

Klaus sits up from where he had been leaning against Vanya and frowns at him. “What Five means to say is you don’t have to stay here. You know that, don’t you, Van?” Vanya goes soft around the edges at the nickname, but remains resolute looking. 

Anger quickly melting into something more desperate, Five remembers the open door and cracked lights. “Vanya you _know_ you aren’t a threat. It’s why you didn’t go in the chamber.” Vanya starts frantically shaking her head, her whole expression pinched.

“I mean to. I tried. I couldn’t- I’m sorry.” Bitterly, Five hopes Luther is hearing this.

_Character Aside #15: Luther is, and is feeling gratified that at least one of his siblings appears to agree with him. Upon reflection, he is not totally surprised that Number Seven of all people is the one to do it. He begins to feel the first pangs of regret over his methods from last time. He should have explained to her what he was going to do ahead of time. It might have helped to keep her calm._

“And I’m not— I can’t control it. We’ve seen what happens.” Vanya’s face shatters, “Nothing has changed, not really. Not that part”

“No, no, Vanya,” Klaus comforts with a strained smile, “we can help you. We’re here to help you.”

“You should leave before it starts again.” Five can hear the beginning of anger there. He’s also not entirely sure what she means when she says “it”. One possibility: if she is being overly fatalistic, “it” could very well cover everything up to the apocalypse. Another possibility: they haven’t been with her over the last few days, and it’s possible he has mistaken control over her powers with power fatigue; in that case, it’s just a matter of time until the walls are shaking again. Yet another: math tells him that she brought herself here a day early, which means they are close to when she hurt Allison, making this a conversation about their family and not the apocalypse, which is both sweet and sociopathic. But he knows it’s not really any of the above.

His sister is just scared and tired and hurt. How the hell do you fix that?

Allison and now even Diego are trying to cajole her and he knows it is the exact wrong thing to do because the air is already getting thicker. Her eyes are more white. Klaus knows it too because he has a hand out in a universal pacifying gesture. Behind him Luther gets up quickly with a scratching, sliding noise, and it’s like the seconds before a car crash because it’s the loudest non-wind-or-voice sound since they’ve been down here, and Five can literally see the nanosecond it goes straight to Vanya’s head.

A visible wave of energy sweeps out from her body as she wrenches herself upward, knocking them all back by several feet. It makes it to the other side of the room where it horrifically slams the chamber door shut so loudly Vanya has to stifle a scream. The wind starts spinning furiously around them while cracks begin to appear on the glass of the door's window.

Spotting it, Diego drags a stunned Luther away from a potential blast radius and shouts, “We have to do something!” Five agrees while having no idea what. Allison is still closest, but even she is stopped by a barrier of visible light that has bubbled around Vanya. But she is not, he notes grimly, caught up in it like he and their brothers had been at the theater. Back when they were being consumed.

“Yeah, baby!” Klaus inexplicably shouts. “It’s worth a shot!” Five glances in his direction, no idea what to expect. There is nothing except... Except the air rushing past them is definitely starting to feel colder. And there, beginning in Klaus’s palms, is a blue light they have only seen once before.

Maybe it’s the practice or maybe it’s just because Five knew it was coming, but Ben’s appearance doesn’t seem as intense as it did the first time. Just a flicker and their brother is with them again ( _he has never left_ ), more substantial than he had looked at the theater in some way that Five can’t quantify. Ben shares a triumphant grin with Klaus before turning to Vanya. He walks through the storm of her powers as if it didn’t even exist. He hesitates only once: just as he is about to place his hands on Vanya’s shoulders.

“Vanya.” 

Five is just close enough to hear Ben, and he’s almost in tears because that’s the new voice of the sibling he hadn’t heard yet. The one he’d thought he’d never get to hear. And right now? Right in this second? All Five wants, _all_ he wants is his family back. ( _The only thing he’s ever wanted. Maybe. Save the world, save his family—stopping the apocalypse was supposed to do both. How cruel that it was a choice the entire time. He does not think the world was an excuse, but it had been less personal, a crucial fact for surviving when he was so totally alone. Klaus had called the apocalypse an addiction, a need. He is too tired, tired to untangle it now, possibly ever._ ) For the first time since a shitty morning circa 2003 all seven of them are together where he can see them, and it is everything he’s been working towards for fifty years.

“Ben!” 

Three things happen when Ben finally puts his arms around their sister: Ben goes from a semi-transparent blue to completely solid, Klaus makes a shocked choking noise as a white light joins the blue that has grown all the way to his elbows, and Vanya’s powers shut off instantly. This is the second time that surprise was enough to refocus Vanya, which could be useful for later. As for Klaus? Five doesn’t know why it’s only just occurring to him now that it might not just be his sister with question marks around her powers. He swears there will be time to figure this all out later.

Six and Seven cling to each other in tears. 

“you’reokayyou’reokayyou’reokay”

“you’rehereyou’rehereyou’rehere”

_(Character Aside #16: Ben is not alive, very much still dead, but more present tense than he has been since the moment his heart stopped beating. He is also in the middle of the first hug he has had since approximately four days before his heart stopped beating. This is only the sixth time he has been able to touch someone as a ghost (first, the punch; second, pulling Diego to safety; third, the horror ripping apart the people trying to hurt his family; fourth and fifth, practicing with Klaus the last few days, but even then feeling never went much past his fingertips). It is entirely too much, Vanya's power burns hot where Klaus is always cold, but he can't back down now. Vanya is so scared and there is absolutely no one else besides him who can understand it. No one else had powers like they do—the kind that can rip apart a room in seconds.)_

“I’ve got you, Van, I’ve got you. Everything is going to be ok, I promise. You’re here, we’ve got you. It’s safe. You’re safe.” Her grip tightens as she burrows even closer to him. Ben has got a good eight inches on her, so Vanya practically disappears behind him.

“You _can’t_ know that!” through sobs. “I can feel it. It’s too big. I can’t—”

“I understand. Of course I understand.” Ben moves apart just enough so that he can get Vanya to look at him. He puts a comforting hand on her unbruised cheek. “I remember what this feels like, Vanya, you _know_ I do.” Her crying stops. “But I also know you. I know you, and I know you can figure this out.”

“What if I can’t?” she shudders.

“You can. You can. I know you can. It’s— it’s alright if you don’t believe that right now, but trust me. Trust me, because I’m certain, Vanya. And you can— you can borrow it. You can borrow some of my certainty right now.”

“Why? _How?_ How can you be so sure?” This is the crux of the problem. To Five it feels nearly insurmountable.

“I’ve met you, that’s how I know,” replies Ben before pulling her back into another tight hug. Five is glad in a way that feels very abstract that Vanya is allowing that kind of thing. He’d worried after what they found out about Luther. She is shaking now, but the powers do not come back.

Out of the corner of his eye, Five watches Allison take a few tentative steps closer to Vanya. He remembers to check on the rest of his siblings so he can look away from his sister crying into his dead brother’s shoulder. Klaus, teary eyed, looks exhausted leaning against the nearest wall, blue light still hovering mid-arm. Diego is distraught and twitchy, still standing next to a frozen and frowning Luther.

The moment she is close enough, Allison begins stoking Vanya’s hair. She joins Ben in a hug that completely hides Vanya from view. She begins whispering assurances that Five does not need to hear to imagine. He shuffles closer to Klaus and shares a look without knowing what he’s trying to convey. Klaus gets it anyway by tipping the corners of his mouth up a fraction while looking towards the ceiling.

Five looks at him closer and sees a slight shake. “You alright?”

“Been better,” Klaus shrugs, “been worse too. All of this,” he gestures towards the corner, “is a lot, and the whole conjuring dead siblings thing is a recent development.” Five gives him a thoughtful hum. Klaus nods. “This is technically only the second time he’s been corporeal. Well first maybe. Time travel. Ugh,” he laughs quietly and looks towards his hands. Up close Five realizes there are still faint white lines tracing through the blue light. Klaus traces one of them along his left arm.

“Vanya is helping somehow, but fuck if I understand it. I don’t think she can feel it, which is probably for the best because it’s a real drain. If I swoon you’ll catch me, yeah?” he asks with a wink.

Five rolls his eyes. “Any idea how long you can old it.”

“Nope,” he answers with a popped p. “This is way more than anything Ben and I have been able to do.” Five thinks back at the theater, and doesn’t really get how this is supposed to before except that… Well except that Ben almost doesn’t look dead anymore.

“I’m impressed, Klaus. Honestly, this is…” he trails off when he sees how unbearably moved his brother looks. With a twinge of guilt he remembers ignoring Klaus trying to talk to him about his hidden potential.

“Aw shucks, Fivey, kind of you to notice.” Klaus absently pats Five’s head with one of his glowing, ice-cold hands, and just this once Five decides he’s not going to kill him over it. “Told you though, s’not just me.”

“You really think Vanya’s powers are doing something?” He remembers the feeling of Vanya draining them on stage, and he wonders.This might call for an amendment to his earlier theory about shock being an effective countermeasure for Vanya’s powers. Maybe they didn’t turn off so much as get redirected.

“Only thing that’s different, isn’t it,” Klaus looks speculative, “You got any idea what her powers are even supposed to be, yet?” He turns to face him fully, “Look, we both know I never paid attention when Dad got to talking theoretical about powers, but even I can tell that Vanya has shown signs of packing a few different kinds of heat.” Five glares in the opposite direction as an answer. “Yeah,” Klaus sighs, “yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

Five continues to look away while trying to tune back into the conversation surrounding Vanya.

He hears Allison beg, “Please, please, we can leave now. We don’t have to stay here. Just let us get you away from here.”

At some point, Diego had joined them without Five noticing. “You said you wanted to h-help, right?” Five still can’t see Vanya, but she must have agreed, because Diego continues speaking. “That’s g-g-good, Vanya, that’s really g-good. B-but b-b-being in this p-place can’t h-help you. There is n-n-n-nothing down here that can h-help anybody. It w-won’t k-keep us s-s-safe.”

“You can’t let go, Van,” Ben whispers. “We’ve got this. We can handle it. You can let go for a little while.” Vanya responds with a sound Five can’t interpret, but it’s enough that the other three shuffle back just enough for him to see her. He wonders when exactly she had started glowing and, for that matter, what the hell the glow actually even means. Either way, it doesn’t feel as threatening this time. Her eyes are closed, but he has no real doubt that they too are changed.

She takes a fortifying breath, literally gathering herself together as the glow begins to fade. Her eyes open on the exhale, comfortingly brown, looking from Diego to Ben and finally Allison completely expressionless.

“Vanya?” Allison tries with a voice full of fragile hope. 

Vanya becomes more resolved, “Yes, fine, alright.” She takes a hesitant step forward.

And then promptly collapses. Which is—entirely in keeping with the luck they have had so far. Allison and Diego are just quick enough that they catch her before she makes contact with the ground. Five also foolishly moves to help despite still being at least three yards away, but is stopped by a wounded noise coming from Klaus as he slips further down the wall. The blue light winks out, and Five turns just in time to see Ben doing the same. He leans down to examine his brother.

“M’fine,” Klaus waves him off, “just give me a minute.” His head swivels to the side, “Don’t you start either. And if I hear even the slightest bit of guilt, I’ll materialize you just to return the punch from before. It was brilliant what you did, honestly, cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Not funny, Klaus,” Five mutters and then, because he’s not sure about protocol, “uh, hi, Ben.”

Klaus smiles dazzlingly at him, “First off, life like mine, jokes about death are _always_ funny. Second, Ben says hi back.” Five snorts with no real idea what to say to either statement. Klaus appears to take it as a victory. He sits up straighter, already starting to look better. “How’s Vanya?” he asks the room at large. Five turns back to check.

“She… she’s fine,” Allison tries to reassure without looking away from their sister.

“Just passed out,” Diego follows up, steady voice contradicted by the shaky hand he runs over his mouth. “Underneath the freaky, world ending powers, she looks like shit. Jesus. Vanya has always been bad at taking care of herself. If she’s really been walking all this time, we’re talking days without sleep. Food too, probably. _Jesus_.”

“And possibly power overload.” Allison runs a hand through Vanya’s hair. “We have no idea what that will look like for her yet.” Ah, a painful reminder that Vanya never trained with them.

It is yet another thing to add to the damn list of factors still unknown.

_Once, Five knew Vanya better than anyone in the whole world._

They begin discussing how best to get Vanya out of here, and where to even take her. It somehow feels worse every time Five is reminded she doesn't have a room here. With a sigh he tunes out everything else, trusting them to handle this part at least.

_Can local family be nice to one little girl?_

Time to find out.

1.

They have decided to take Vanya to Grace. Considering what happened on this exact day the last time, it feels risky to Luther, but he is smart enough not to say anything for now. Grace had already been looking for Vanya so it was really only a matter of time. ( _And Grace had said she spoke to Vanya earlier. Mom and Vanya spoke and the house didn’t collapse._ ) Five has jumped ahead to find her so Grace will be ready to examine Seven. Luther is holding Vanya in his arms, feeling vaguely surprised that the others have trusted him. But then he had held her as they jumped, so maybe, maybe. Diego is supporting a weak looking Klaus, while they both keep looking back at him anxiously. Allison keeps sending him looks too as she keeps pace beside him to continue holding Vanya’s hand.

Actually it occurs to him that none of them have been looking at him at all. Vanya has been very still. Back down there she had looked small and weak like he is used to thinking of her.

He very deliberately does not glance down at her, his sister who will put herself in the cage now.

2.

Diego is sure that his family has never been this quiet for this long in their entire lives. He is _absolutely not_ counting any of the times their dad forbid them from talking in his presence because fuck that guy. All of them have been piled in The Academy’s medbay—houses shouldn’t have medbays because no one should be expecting their children to be hurt often enough to need them so another big fuck you to dad—for, uh, twenty minutes at least between waiting for Mom to show up and then to finish her examination.

He would be in a bad mood even if this wasn’t the second sister he’s seen unconscious in here on this particular date, but it’s really not helping.

Vanya has not moved once on the table as Mom collects her vitals.

Check on the others then. Luther is lurking in the doorway like the world’s moodiest guard dog. He refuses to look anyone in the eye. Good. Diego isn’t enjoying Number One’s downfall exactly, but he’s more than earned it so gets to live with it. Allison is hovering near Vanya’s head, radiating pure worry. He finds it intensely relatable. Klaus is curled up on the chair Diego forced him into. He looks pale and jittery, which would normally mean something very specific. Except as far as Diego knows Klaus has been sober for more consecutive days than since when they were kids. He’d been proud of his brother even before the impressive power display downstairs. Five has been perched on a cabinet since he brought Mom in like physical distance will help him feel less. Or maybe the little shit just likes to be tall. Ben is probably here too, has probably been with them a bunch of times without him knowing, and it’s equally comforting and creepy to think about.

Oh and Pogo is here. He looks tired and ancient. It’s not new, but Diego hadn’t really noticed it until the old monkey walked in looking burdened just now. He is, of course. Just because they’ve refused to talk about it doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten all the secrets he’s not saying.

Vanya still hasn’t moved. It’s a lot because Mom just hooked her up to one of those bags for people who are dehydrated. ( _He fucking called it_.) But still, not even a twitch when the needle went in. He doesn’t think so anyway. He looked away last minute, but he’s got great peripheral vision so.

Mom steps back and gives Vanya one last visual sweep with the cybernetics in her eyes. She hums satisfied.

Allison jumps on it immediately, “She’s going to be ok?”

“With rest and a few hearty meals, absolutely,” Mom offers with her normal megawatt smile. Diego feels better instantly.

“What’s wrong with her?” A blink and Five is standing next to Allison. Is eyes are on Vanya like she’s an equation he needs to balance.

“Nothing too serious,” answers Mom brightly. “She has two fractured ribs and bruises that are several days old. She is also exhibiting the early signs of dehydration, extreme hunger, and sleep deprivation. I recommend she sleep for now. I can go prepare something light for when she wakes up.” The back half of that isn’t a surprise in the slightest, the first half? Harold Jenkins is real lucky he already kicked it. As it stands, all Diego can do is picture how he would have taken care of the shitstain if he’d gotten the chance. Real slow, real ugly, and real painful.

Five’s expression is pinched when he asks, “Does she show any signs of power fatigue?” Everyone goes completely still except for Pogo and Mom. Pogo gasps and takes several halting steps towards the table before stopping with a hand over his heart. If he looked sad and tired before… Mom just blinks a few times as she processes what Five said, and then turns to look down at Vanya very slowly.

Mom puts one hand on Vanya’s forehead and closes her own eyes. “Oh little one,” she says, sounding as sad as her programming allows, “you have always been so good at finding trouble.” She removes her hand and takes a deliberate step away from the table. 

“You are aware of Number Seven’s abilities?” Her face is completely blank when she looks at them. 

“We are,” Five nods.

“Do I need to prepare the chamber?” Mom asks, tone still perfectly neutral. A few days ago Vanya had asked him about Mom’s programming. He spoke to her of love when they talked, but he is only now beginning to understand that his sister has probably seen a side to their mother that the rest of them didn't.

“That will not be necessary,” Five snaps, “ not ever again.”

Pogo jerks forward. “You will not be…” He cannot finish the sentence. Diego can only imagine.

“Be locking are sister a mile under the house?” Klaus supplies acidly, “No, we don’t really like that option for some reason.”

“Your father believed it was the only way to keep her safe. To keep all of his children safe.” Diego honestly can’t tell if Pogo is trying to defend the past or argue that they do it again in the future. Luther told them that Vanya murdered Pogo. At the time, it seemed the ultimate proof that Vanya had gone full dark side. But now? It’s not that he agrees, Christ, but he understands, for the first time really understands why it happened.

Klaus glares back, “Our father is dead. Know anything about that Pogo?”

“Klaus,” Allison sighs. Honestly, Diego gets it. Both of them. What Klaus said was real below the belt—and it’s still an adjustment, this new edge his brother picked up somewhere on his second tour—but Pogo looks like he’s just been hit and now probably isn’t the right time for that. This last double-stuffed week feels like it’s been going on for a least a year, and things have felt so unstable for such a long time. They really do not need another reason to explode.

_Character Aside #17: It’s not like Allison doesn’t get it too. It’s not like they hadn’t all wondered long before Vanya about Pogo, and how he could just stand by while awful things happened to them. Now her adult intellect says that Pogo didn’t have much power, but back then with his adult intellect he still looked away. Love was a too complicated word in the house that Reginald Hargreeves built. Pogo represents that better than anyone. He says he loves them, and she believes him, but she wouldn’t trust him with anything that actually matters. Probably not before, but definitely not now. Pogo was in the room when she rumored Vanya. Back when she and Vanya were the same age as her daughter is now. She holds those two facts in her mind, and thinks unforgivable. But who cares? They are finally adults now. No one, not Pogo or Dad or Mom can hurt them like before. Except maybe themselves. Except maybe themselves endlessly repeating the same stupid shit over and over again._

_Character Aside #18: Also, in the spirit of this do-over, Allison feels it’s very important that Vanya at least be awake for a conversation that will, in part, be all about her._

Pogo sighs, “It appears you have learned much over the past week. This was, of course, the exact reason your father wanted all of you to come together in the first place. He—”

“We know about the Apocalypse,” Five cuts in, voice brittle. “We already know how to stop it.” ( _Fuck, Diego sure hopes so._ ) When Pogo doesn’t respond, Five turns back to Mom in a gesture of clear dismissal. “So, any signs of power fatigue?:

Despite this, “Are the two things related?” Pogo asks quietly. Without communicating, they all form rank. Klaus shifts in his chair so he’s ready to pounce, Allison leans forward so she can provide cover on Vanya, Diego moves closer to grab Pogo if he has to, and even Luther comes more fully into the room. Not for the first time, a small part of Diego wonders exactly what was said in the first conversation when Pogo confessed to One about Vanya’s powers. Mostly though, he can’t believe it’s come to this.

Five just raises his chin in a painfully familiar defiant look he used to pull with Dad all the time. “What if they are?”

“Always the most troubled,” Mom saves Pogo from answering, “my smallest daughter, my first child. He believed her powers were too great for her. And she always made him so angry.” She turns to look more fully at Five. “I did not know to check for power fatigue in my previous examination. It would be difficult to do so now. She was young when your father decided to stop testing her. As a result, her exact limitations are largely unknown.” The corners of her lips turn down, “Perhaps a brainwaves study. Her levels were extraordinary, even compared to the rest of you. Even after her powers were suppressed.” Five digests this with a thoughtful nod and turns his back away from the conversation. Diego, however, is stuck on an odd phrase.

“First child? What does that m-mean?” he asks in an even tone. Mom, like always, can still tell the underlying feeling, because she smiles at him before answering.

“Mr. Hargreeves created me so I could be Number Seven’s primary caregiver after several incidents with her previous ones.”

“She kept killing nannies,” Luther translates tonelessly. The previous conversation with Pogo, Diego guesses.

“Those were accidents." Mom's voice leaves no room for argument, "There is much the human brain does not comprehend in early childhood. After an initial episode with me, she was always a gentle child. Eventually, Mr. Hargreeves decided that I should be made mother to all of his children.” She smiles brightly at them, repeating what Diego has already heard many times before. “Being you mother is the greatest gift of my life.”

“Vanya’s name,” Five surprises them sounding uncharacteristically soft.

“A gift,” Mom nods.

“You should tell her,” says Allison. “Later, when she wakes up. She should hear that.”

Klaus leans back into his chair, back to looking exhausted. “There was something Vanya said earlier, something Dad would tell her about you. You were designed to be a protector?” Mom takes a step back, hands immediately moving to straighten her wrinkless skirt. She glances at Pogo.

“Vanya was a gift, but dangerous. There were many things your father asked me or Pogo to do so that the rest of you would be kept safe.”

_Character Aside #19: Klaus doesn't think he has ever been this invested in someone’s pain before. Possibly not even his own given his life-long love affair with hating himself. He’s changed, and it will probably be a good thing in the end, but he’s getting really tired of this heavy, heartsick feeling. Every new revelation about Vanya feels worse than the last. There is no one in his sister’s life that wasn’t involved in this tawdry conspiracy, no one Dad didn’t rope into being at least part time jailer to keep her down and isolated. It’s this fact more than any other that’s been burning him up lately. Guilt by association or otherwise is doing something awful to his style. He still has a full body itch from the show they all got in Dad’s infernal basement, which just showed how deep down this damage goes. It all makes him wanna have some words, frankly._

Watching Klaus run his hands through his hair, Diego sighs. “It’s not. Mom it’s not your fault.” He even means it. Mom isn’t Pogo. Diego will always be the first person to say that Mom has evolved beyond her basic programming, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t programmed. If there is one single person in this house who can’t be held responsible for any of the shit that’s gone down, it is definitely Grace Hargreeves.

Mom must take him at his word, because she leaves shortly after with a promise of food for Vanya. Pogo joins her, which is a relief Diego only feels kind of bad about. They fall back into silence after with the exception of a single comment from Klaus.

“Shit’s absolutely fucked, isn’t it.”

Yeah, it really, absolutely is.

3.

What Allison is learning about her love is that it’s an act of will.

They have just finished settling Vanya in Allison’s room. She woke up long enough to have some of the soup Mom made for her, but clearly didn't have energy left for anything else. Where her sister would stay was another question, since she hasn’t had a room in this house since 2006. Allison was insistent. It also made the most sense. Her room is one of the biggest in the whole house. 

Some of the others (Luther in particular) wanted to keep watch, but calmer heads prevailed thanks to (shockingly) Five. The end result in Vanya tucked safely away for what is likely her first real sleep in days. Her sister looks child-small curled under the covers, seeming more relaxed than Allison’s seen in years probably.

So all’s well that ends well. The whole thing suits her just fine.

She crawls into bed and immediately links her hand to the closest of Vanya’s. When not out searching, she’s been using the last few days to start researching childhood trauma and recovery from abusive relationships. It was all very preliminary and completely overwhelming, but it also all feels more possible now that Vanya is actually here.

Here, but still so hurt. She had expected that, but there are also new hurts that she hadn’t thought about until they were back in Vanya’s prison cell. These are the things her sister specifically picked up between their father’s memorial and a concert that killed everything. She’s not sure there are books for this pain. That’s not going to stop her.

What Allison is learning about her love is that it isn’t a gentle thing.

She held a gun to her sister’s head for less than half a minute. Her brothers were dying several feet in the air, and she had to make a choice. If only they had listened to her before. If only they could have seen beyond danger and threats. Well just because they hadn’t believed her doesn’t mean she didn’t still believe in herself. She made her choice. She fired a gun not trying to take a life, but to save one ( _the other seven billion were an accident_ ).

But the choice she made wasn’t just in that moment. It’s the kind of choice you have to keep making. And she is. She will. For however long it takes. Again and again.

She falls asleep to thoughts of how much better she is going to make things.

When she wakes up the light is soft through her window and her sister isn’t there.

She doesn’t panic though.

What Allison is learning about her love is that it’s a thing she’s going to fight for.

7.

Vanya wakes up and for a moment the whole world is white. Her eyes adjust and she realizes it’s just dawn on an overcast day making everything look washed out. This was ( _and possibly will be again_ ) the day she ended the world, but holding the old memories in her mind she can’t remember what the sky looked like the last time this morning happened. ( _It was when she was killing Leonard._ )

She turns to see her sister Allison asleep on the pillow next to hers. She smiles feeling a type of gratitude she cannot remember ever having a reason to feel before. Remembering last night, the feeling increases until she’s nearly bursting with it. Until, that is, she recalls how dangerous that kind of reckless emoting can be for her. It is surprisingly easy to let them float away considering how little practice she’s had.

She quietly gets out of bed to peer out the window, something that used to calm her down a lot after she moved out at seventeen. Is it easy or unfathomable to imagine that the world is supposed to end today?

If it were any other week, she thinks she’d feel more embarrassed about what she can remember from her breakdown last night. Her feelings used to be an intensely private affair, even from herself. Now, she cannot move through the world without spilling them onto everything she touches. It should be mortifying. She smiles grimly. That is an extraordinarily small way to describe a phenomenon that had, can, and will destroy the world.

She has been drowning in guilt and shame over that issue for the last few days. She’s not sure where it all went, but she’s glad. It means she can finally think. Vanya does not delude herself into believing this quiet will last forever, which makes it all the more important that she take advantage of it now. She leaves her sister's room, following the hallway down to the entryway. It too is full of white light.

The sky is not the only thing that’s washed out, she realizes. Wiped clean, that’s how she feels now. Not just quiet, but at peace. She knows what needs to happen now. One more conversation with her family is all it will take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, you guys. Things got real for this family quick!
> 
> Like I said, the rest of Part II should be up in less time than it took to get this part posted.
> 
> Please reach out if you have impressions, complaints, shared obsessions either here or on my tumblr. (jenndoesntwantto)
> 
> Love you lots!


	3. Part II.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya finally gets to explain her side of the week that wasn't. Everything really hurts, but maybe it won't forever.
> 
> "Their father had taken one look at her at four years old and he’d known. The first chance she got and she brought the house down. They’re all so used to thinking of her as small, but she seems almost giant to him now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya everybody! So anyway, this section ended up being much longer than I originally expected. It only took me 100 pages to actually write the scene that was the entire reason for writing this fic. Normal people problems.
> 
> As a reminder, this should be considered a continuation of Part II. The "Character Asides" continue their numbering from the first part. The next update will be Part III. I'm currently out of state so no promises, but I'll probably be sticking to my normal weeklyish schedule.
> 
> FAIR WARNING ON NEW TAGS: the second half of this chapter (the part from Five's perspective) does include a character advocating for their own death as well as a reference to a similarly murky moment in the past. What name you'd give to that depends on how you read it, but if it's the kind of thing that's harmful for you to read please do what you gotta do to stay safe. You can mostly skip everything between the two ..... in that section without losing much of the whole thread.
> 
> I own nothing, mistakes are my own
> 
> story title from "Shake It Out" by Florence + the Machine
> 
> as mood music please check out my Vanya playlist on spotify. It starts with child Vanya, goes through the events of the show, and carries through to the end of this fic. it can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ayRVXvSGmsenF7PGYWt2i
> 
> find me on tumblr @ jenndoesntwantto

4.

Klaus finds Vanya sat in the middle of one of the couches in the first floor living room around seven in the morning. He very deliberately does not look at the looming portrait of their father. He very deliberately looks at his sister instead. She has her knees pulled up like before, but her arms are stretched out loose resting on top of them. Instead of the devastation he has become used to seeing on her face, there is a faraway, thoughtful expression. Her eyes are open, clear, and ringed in silver. The last part doesn’t scare him though; he has decided he might as well quit fear along with the drugs. He's been repeating that over and over lately. It has a nice, buzzy ring to it.

“Van?” he tries out hesitantly. ( _It’s only the second time he can ever remember using an affectionate nickname with her in a way he actually meant._ )

She turns to him with a placid smile, “Good morning, Klaus.” When she looks him straight in the eyes all he can see is his little sister, but more alive then she has ever been before. All of the kinship he’d been wondering about as a kid suddenly slams into him. Just like that she has becomes a mirror. Too much and too little their father would say, his two failed experiments. The bomb that wouldn’t; the medium that couldn’t.

He sweeps onto the couch with a bounce and a pleading look. She reads it well enough, because she puts the leg closest to him down so he can throw his head onto her lap. She starts playing with his hair without him even having to ask. 

Though he’s feeling miles better than yesterday, using his powers like he did, a real proper work out, has made him weirdly aware of his own body. Even Ben had gone poof in the middle of the night, going wherever ghosts go to recover. Being a noodle-long exposed nerve means that his sister scratching lazy circles into his scalp is almost too soft to handle. Soft, but not entirely unfamiliar. He has half buried memories of crashing on her couch after breaking into her apartment or being dragged out of hospital or fished from rehab. And always his sister offering something he never really even considered taking her up on. Sitting next to a Vanya so alive it aches, he can’t quite remember why anymore.

They don’t say anything, just mutually ( _he hopes_ ) enjoying each other’s presence. Time marches, but he doesn’t bother to count it. 

Eventually, the others start to trickle in.

Allison is first, taking up the space on the other side of Vanya. She goes for Vanya’s hand immediately and rests her head on her shoulder. Five is suddenly just there. He shoots them a weak spasm of a smile before he goes to lean against the nearest window. Ben, back to only being visible to Klaus, pops in with the warm smile Five couldn’t manage and leans against the opposite couch. Diego troops in ten minutes later, takes one look at all of them, and heads in the direction of the kitchen. He comes back with a tray stacked with coffee mugs and a pot, which he places on the table between the couches. Klaus finds it adorably maternal actually.

Klaus sits up as those who are interested get their caffeine fix. Vanya pours a mug, but doesn’t drink any. He thinks she just likes the feel of a warm mug, which is also adorable. Five mainlines two cups in a row before huffing impatiently.

“I’ll just go get Luther. Family meeting.” He jumps out on the "g", but is back a minute later after a surprised shout from the direction of the bedrooms. Diego is trying not to laugh. Ben doesn’t need to hide anything and chuckles fully.

Luther walks in, awkward as hell. We are a long way, Klaus thinks and only a little uncharitably, from Number One, mission leader. He places himself on the same couch Diego is on, but as far away from Number Two as he can get without actually melding into the arm. This conveniently places him in front of Allison.

“So,” his brother begins with a comical attempt at dignity, “Five told me we’re having a meeting?”

“Yes,” Five agrees from the window, though at least he’s facing towards them now. “We need to discuss, well…” he makes an all encompassing gesture with his hand that sums up their situation quite admirably. Despite this, no one makes a single move toward any important conversation.

Well alright, “Ben’s here too,” he says, both because he can now and also it’s what Ben deserves. He points to the chasm between Luther and Diego. “He’s standing behind the couch.” Diego blinks owlishly in that direction while Luther gives a small, awkward wave. Allison smiles.

Vanya puts the mug down and squeezes his hand. “It was really impressive what you did downstairs. That’s new right?” She shakes her head, “I, uh, know Ben has been with you for awhile, but the corporeal thing I mean?”

“We’ve been practicing,” he answers immediately, not sure how to explain his suspicion about how her own powers helped. And then, wait. What? “You already knew Ben was here?”

She looks at him strangely, “Yeah, you told me years ago. One of those times after the hospital. Um, I don’t think Ben was there at the time, but you said,” she pauses with a frown, “I think you said he’s been haunting you off and on since about a year after the funeral.”

“I-” he begins completely stunned, “I have less than zero memory of this. Are you, are you saying you actually believed me? You’ve really known this entire time?” he accidentally ends on a shout.

“Klaus,” Vanya continues looking at him funny, “you see ghosts. And I don’t… well ok maybe at first, I thought… I don’t know? I mean I had just checked you out after an overdose, and there was a second I thought maybe it was just that you really wanted to see Ben or the… or the drugs made you hallucinate, but then I guess I just thought about it and with your powers it… well it made sense and I knew for certain you wouldn’t lie about seeing Ben. You just wouldn’t so.” Just like that. Just like that she had believed him. It makes him want to cry. He glances at Ben, who is looking right back at him more softly than he’s ever seen his brother, which is saying A LOT.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“You never brought it up again,” she shrugs, “I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.” God. _God_. That’s such a Vanya answer. He can’t even believe. This whole time. She’s been right here this entire time. How did he never notice? 

To avoid the painful rush of feelings, he fishes for a subject change. “Alright there, Fivey, you wanted us to talk so how about we get this show on the road. Let’s roll credits, bud.” Five rolls his eyes instead, but doesn’t call him out, which feels weirdly kind for the version of Five they’ve had since he got back. Or maybe he doesn’t understand how used to not being believed Klaus has become over the years.

“ _Wait_ ,” Ben says with Klaus obediently parroting right after. “ _Someone needs to ask Vanya how she’s feeling. I mean physically. Remember what Mom said about her ribs?_ ” Klaus translates a bit shamefaced, surprised he somehow forgot. A glance at the others shows he wasn’t the only one.

“It’s fine,” Vanya sighs. “It’s just some bruising, it really doesn’t matter.”

Diego snorts, “It really does actually.”

“Vanya, we were in the room when Mom did her initial examination. Technically an invasion of privacy, but there’s no use lying. And, to be clear, if you keep saying you’re fine? That makes things worse, not better.” Five moves from his window, sitting in between Luther and Diego after a brief hesitation. It puts him directly across from Vanya, who he's looking faintly apologetic towards. “We know about the ribs, we can see your face, and I saw the ring around your right wrist in the medical room. Is there anything else?”

She doesn’t answer, instead starting a glaring competition with Five. She must lose because with a huff she starts to reach for the right cuff of the button up shirt they hadn’t bothered to change her out of last night. She flips it back a few times showing the ring of bruises Five had just referred to that Klaus had absolutely not caught before. She does the same for her left wrist. He lets himself believe that this will be the worst of it, but then she reaches to gather her hair up. Her shirt has been done up to the top button and he hadn’t thought to look, not even once.

_Character Aside #20: Diego has seen all of his siblings bruised and bloody with just a single, notable exception. There is only one sibling that he never witnessed being put through the ringer of Dad’s endless fucking training. There is only one sibling he never had to drag out of a hostile situation in the middle of mission determined to go sideways. There is only one sibling who had been safe from all of this violent shit. And now there is just one sibling sitting here with finger shaped bruises around her neck and wrists. And all of this, all of it because there had been only one sibling they had never been taught to look out for._

Five’s voice is deadly-assassin neutral when he looks for confirmation that, “Harold Jenkins did this?”

“I didn’t have my powers this time,” Vanya shrugs, “It made it more difficult to get away.”

“So when I jumped us back you ended up at his house?” Five looks down with a fidget.

Vanya’s laughs humorlessly. “That’s not your fault, Five. After the house was attacked, I just… I didn’t want to be alone. _I_ took _myself_ to his house because it was the first place I thought of. You had no way of knowing that.” Klaus hates the way she seems to imply it’s her fault, but before he can say that she continues speaking. “Besides, unless there’s something you haven’t said about training your powers while you were gone, I doubt you actually had that much control over when and where we were going to end up. Acorns, right?”

She and Five go back to their staring contest. “Am I wrong?” she challenges. Five looks away with a scowl. Vanya begins buttoning her shirt again. When the cuffs are back in place she adds, “I am also pretty sure this isn’t really what you wanted to talk about, so.” Impressive. Turns out all the silver light in his sister’s eyes has been steel this whole time.

Five runs an annoyed hand across his face. “As we know, today was the first day of the Apocalypse. There are still things I need to know so we can be sure it never will be again.”

“You mean like how I went from being a painfully mediocre violinist to destroyer of worlds?” Vanya’s smile is all bitterness turned inward. Klaus doesn’t like it so he pokes her low on the side away from any ribs. He catches several of the others grimacing in agreement.

Five frowns, “That’s not exactly how I’d phrase it, but essentially, yes.”

Vanya tilts her head, “What do you need to know?”

“The powers. What do you know about them?”

“Not… not a lot. Uh, basically? I think I take in sounds and convert them into something, uh, bigger.”

“Pure energy,” Five mumbles, “that fits. Sound is already the movement of energy, you just make it more… raw somehow. Some of the waves you generate are even observable.” He looks back up, “Does the original sound determine the strength of the energy created?”

“No, I don’t think it matters at all. It—” Vanya’s hand clench. He and Allison both reach out at the same time. Vanya untenses. “It’s not just sound. My feelings… The sound is the material, I guess, but emotions are what create the force.”

“Emotions and energy,” Five tests the words.

Allison gasps, “That makes a lot of sense. Think of the other stuff Vanya has been doing with emotions.” They all turn to her waiting for further explanation. “Oh come on. You guys all felt what it was like down-downstairs. The air was literally thick with, with, God, pain I guess? And I mean,” she turns to Vanya with a smile, “when I first got to the theater and I heard you playing? I know music is supposed to make you feel things, but I have _never_ felt music that intensely before and I don’t even really like classical.” Allison wrinkles her nose reviewing what she just said. “Not that violin isn’t-” Vanya snorts and pats her on the shoulder.

“So what? You’re thinking empathy projection? But how would that fit with energy conversion?” Five squints at Vanya like he’ll be able to read the answer on her face. “Are they two parts of the same power or two seperate abilities that have tangled together?”

“There might,” she hesitates, “maybe also be something with weather?”

“Weather? _Why_?” Five asks sounding offended.

“Why not?” Klaus laughs, “Weren’t you the one who said our powers are all crazy. I, for one, think the possibility of a weather witch in the family is magnificent.” He grins at Vanya while Five scowls at the impossibility of it all. Five starts muttering to himself.

“Five,” Vanya says with a patient smile, trying to get him back on track. He shakes his head and frowns again.

“Allison says you had your powers at a young age. Do you remember them at all?”

“Not much. We were really young when Dad stopped training me. I think… slowly I’m starting to remember more.”

Diego looks unsure as he asks, “Do you know why he stopped? I mean we all had accidents, right?”

“You don’t think the nannies were bad enough?” Luther snaps incredulously. Klaus hates to agree with Luther on anything right now, but he thinks that’s actually a pretty valid point. Rude way to bring it up though.

“No,” Vanya quietly answers without looking at anyone, “it wasn’t the nannies. Or not just the nannies. I think,” she twitches, “I think that’s why Dad made Mom, and I definitely remember training for awhile after she arrived.” Oh. Well it’s good there's at least one difficult conversation they won’t have to have with Vanya.

She looks back up, “I don’t know how much sense this makes, but I think we stopped training because I broke his monocle.”

“His monocle,” Diego repeats slowly. And it’s not funny, except it’s really, really funny. Klaus eyes sweep the room to avoid any eye contact that might send him over the edge. Reginald was a right fucking prick, but boy was he always painfully on brand.

“I’m not that sure, but it’s the last training I can remember. He used to have me break wine glasses, and I guess I got a little carried away and broke the monocle. I think I even cut his face.”

“Oh bravo, Number Seven,” Klaus claps, “way to really stick it to the man.” A little tasteless, but Vanya’s smile even reaches her eyes so he thinks it was worth it despite everyone else’s disapproval.

Five rolls his eyes at him _again_ , “Alright, so you broke his monocle and Hargreeves got scared. He rumored you into forgetting,” Vanya stiffens at the mention of the rumor, but stays silent. “So then why did they come back? What was so special about this week?”

Vanya blinks up at him confused before her whole face clears in understanding. “Oh. Sorry. That was really stupid, of course you wouldn’t— I should have said earlier. So stupid. Sorry.” She reaches into her right pants pocket and pulls out a very familiar pill bottle and then places it on the table next to the coffee. Allison found them on the floor downstairs after Vanya collapsed. She took them with her when they went looking for Mom and must have left them out for Vanya since the thought of their sister without them is impossible. They have all been watching her take them for almost the entirety of their life.

They stare at them uncomprehendingly until Five starts swearing.

_Character Aside #21: Five knows the pills have never made complete sense. Their father didn't have patience for weakness. He resented Diego’s stutter and Ben’s depression and Klaus’s fear with equal fervor. It had always been unlikely that the one child he could find some compassion for was the one he never lost an opportunity to call useless. But Vanya had literally been taking them for as long as any of them could remember. It was such a regular occurrence that his abstract sense of unease never had the chance to coalesce into anything workable. And there were always so many other clearly wrong things happening, who really had time to worry about medication that didn't seem to have any dangerous side effects. But that’s the point, he knows, Vanya was the trick that Reginald Hargreeves hid in plain sight._

When Five calms down enough Vanya explains, “My powers came back because I stopped taking my medication.” Even made explicit, it still takes another second for it to click, but when it does all of his living siblings start staring at the pills even harder. But it’s for a different reason now. He can see that Luther, Diego, and Allison are plainly horrified, as if the bottle might jump up and bite them. Klaus would bet the whole of this house that they are all thinking some variation of “one little pill and I could become ordinary.” Five and Ben have angrier expressions, because they are clearly the good brothers in the family. Klaus though, well Klaus—

“Are you suggesting, sister mine, that father had a magic pill to make our powers go away and he never fucking offered?” Based on the noise Ben makes, Klaus can guess it’s probably the wrong take. Maybe unkind under the circumstances, but there isn’t a single person in this damn place that doesn’t know how he feels about his powers and he’s making no apologies for it. Vanya isn’t offended anyway, she’s just looking at him sad, sad, sad. For who, he doesn’t know. 

“No, Klaus,” she pats his hand gently. “That’s not what they do.” Klaus grabs for the bottle immediately. He hears the others making some kind of prohibitory noise, probably thinking he’s about to break his sober streak or something equally insulting, but Vanya stays perfectly still. Klaus turns the bottle in his hands until he gets to the prescription label and his whole body freezes.

There is a possibility, of course, that the pills inside this little container do not match their label. They could be some Frankenstein concoction engineered by their father, but that is hardly a more comforting thought, and anyway Vanya moved out seventeen years ago so she’s probably been getting these at a regular pharmacy for forever. In fact, he sees the address on the label. It’s not impossible that their father knew where she got her prescription filled, and god knows he wasn’t above something like bribery, but… Well there's a saying about zebras and horses and paths of least resistance, and for the most part, Klaus has always believed the easiest answer is usually the right one.

Klaus feels his shock solidify into a cold, radiating fury. He turns to look at Vanya, who appears to have been waiting patiently for his what? Judgement? Is that expression shame? Something inside of him absolutely shatters.

He uses everything he has to keep his voice level, “This is what you’ve been taking for all these years?” She nods. “At this dose?”

“It’s changed over the years. Sometimes more, sometimes less.” Klaus does not mention the way he’s seen her popping these, that at some point she was encouraged to determine her own dose. He can hear echoes of Mom and Pogo and even Dad occasionally asking if she’s taken her medicine yet. It’s a damned miracle they didn’t rope the kids into that too.

He cannot stop staring at Vanya.

The first thing he had noticed about her this morning was how much more vibrant she seemed.

“Jesus, Klaus, what the hell is it?” Diego demands. Evil. That’s what it is. Fucking evil. Absolutely. Everything, _every_ thing there Father has done, and this is the final camal. This is the back-broken straw. He has finally found his line and it’s the chemical assassination of a toddler.

Without taking his eyes off Vanya he answers, “Dad gave medical grade benzos to a four year old. Even on my worst days I’m not sure I would dare touch drugs this heavy.” That’s a lie, but only just. This is the kind of thing he’d take only on those desperate nights he really needed to fade out completely, take his toes right to the line of oblivion with barely a hope he wouldn’t fall over. He thinks back to some of his overdoses, and wonders if one of the times she came to pick him up, little Vanya wasn’t on the exact same thing that landed him in the hospital.

_Character Aside #22: Luther doesn’t think he would really understand Klaus’s horror if he hadn’t died four years ago only to wake up in a body that wasn’t his because his father pumped him full of an experimental drug. As ashamed as he has often been since it happened, he has never been able to sustain any long term anger towards his father over his choice. Dad did what he had to do to save Luther’s life. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t walk away from that experience with a crystal sharp understanding of what the word “violation” means either._

“Vanya, nearly our whole lives,” he chokes out, “and you’ve spent all this time,” _under water, suffocating, wasted, half-dead,_ “sedated.” Vanya closes her eyes and breathes sharply through her nose. The shamed look takes over her whole face, but that’s not what he meant. It isn’t.

Eyes still closed she tries, “I didn’t know. I’ve never known before. I stopped taking the pills and suddenly the world had sound and color and dimension. I didn’t know before… This whole time and I’ve had no idea that life was supposed to feel like before.” Vanya opens her eyes to look at him and they are absolutely on fire. He thinks: now his sister is painfully, devastatingly, cataclysmically, apocalyptically alive.

_Character Aside #23: Allison watches Klaus’s face shatter as Vanya finally looks up at him, and feels her own do the same. How long had she resented her sister for not being more? More present, more involved, more colorful. Hadn’t it just been days ago that she had thrown Vanya’s inability to connect back at her like the ultimate argument. Weren’t there even times she had rolled her eyes at what they all saw as Vanya’s sickly, anxious disposition. Wondered just a handful of times what she had to be so anxious about. The excuses go round and round. They were kids, it was cruel, it was this house, it was sick, it was their father. Their father who drugged their sister in front of them, and none of them ever questioned a thing._

It hits him. Stopped. She keeps saying stopped. Panic begins to over take him and he has to stop himself from standing up.

“You just-- “ he tries to speak through the fear, stops, breathes, tries again, “you just quit. Just like that. Cold turkey?” She nods, and this time he can’t help it. He jumps up like he’s been burned. He reviews everything he knows about Vanya’s life in the last week ( _two weeks_ ) and groans. He sways with the force necessary to not pace. He grabs at his hair. 

“Oh Vanya, Vanya, don’t you get it? Don’t you see?” She shakes her head wearily. He turns to the others, all giving him bug-eyed looks. All except Ben, who has the beginning sparks of understanding in his eyes, and of course, of _course_ because who else has seen it. How many times has he made his brother watch. “Don’t _any_ of you get it?” he barks out desperately. But they don’t. They never have. The intricacies of drug culture have always flown right over their pretty little heads as nothing more than Number Four’s intrinsic weakness.

With another groan he falls to his knees at Vanya’s feet. He grabs both of her hands and places them to his forehead. He looks up to see her utter mystification and he wants to weep.

He tries to review all he has ever learned about benzodiazepines over his years of drug addiction and takes a deep breath. “Tell me, over the last few days have you been experiencing insomnia? Shakes? Fear? Hypersensitivity? Mood swings?” He pauses, utterly heartbroken, and makes sure she is really looking at him. “What about a psychotic break or two?”

“Klaus, what?” Vanya sounds scared. Good, she should. They should all be scared. An evil thing. An absolutely evil thing to do to a child.

Keeping his voice soft, “Twenty-five years ago Dad gave you a controlled substance and you, my love, are finally experiencing the comedown.” The last of the theatrics bleeds out of him. “It’s withdrawal, Vanya. You’ve been experiencing withdrawal.” He hears some gasps from behind him, and it’s a painful relief to think they finally get it. Boneless, he drops his forehead onto his sister’s knees. A taught silence follows.

“I didn’t mean to,” Vanya whispers. He looks up to see her doing that thing with her shoulders she does to make herself look even smaller. He shakes his head, he wants her to stop before it horrifically turns into an apology, but then she follows with, “it was Leonard he—” she cuts off sharply with a gasp, pulling out the hand from over her knee and under his head so she can cover her mouth in shock. She looks horrified when she turns to Allison.

“That’s why you found him in my apartment that morning. That’s what he was doing. He broke in so he could take the spare bottle I keep in the butter container. They were there this time around because he never got the chance to do it again.” She starts rocking. “You tried to tell me. I should have listened. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It is the most emotion she has shown this morning; he is expecting the sounds of her powers any second now.

The moment she stops speaking Allison places a hand on both of Vanya’s shoulders and frantically shakes her head. Klaus, meanwhile, sits up and speaks at the same time as a dangerous sounding Diego.

“He broke into your apartment?”

“He stole your pills?”

Klaus gets Diego’s priorities, he does, but he doesn’t share them. Breaking in is bad, but for all the money in the world the pill thing seems so much worse. To secretly mess with someone’s brain chemistry like that? It’s… it’s… it’s, God, the only word he can think of is violent. And maybe that’s a stupid surprise because he can literally see the too dark bruises on Vanya’s too pale face, but sill. _Still_. Giving the pills to her everyday for years was evil. Suddenly taking them away was pure violence.

“Wait,” Five demands with enough authority to drag every eye in the room to him, “Leonard is Harold Jenkins, correct?” Vanya nods stiffly. “How did he know about the medication? _We_ didn’t even know about the medication.” Klaus watches proudly as Vanya uses the question to gather her scattered pieces. She even comes close to reclaiming some of the peace from before they started speaking.

“I still haven’t figured out how, but, uh, he had one of Dad’s journals. One of the red ones with his initials. He was always writing notes in them during training?” answers Vanya sounding basically unconcerned. It’s a nice counterbalance to how Klaus is feeling.

“He had what?” Five shouts just as Klaus shoots up, takes several steps away, and nearly falls over an unoccupied chair he didn’t realize was behind him.

They stare at him in shocked silence until, finally, very quietly, Diego: “Klaus, what did you do?” Klaus can’t bring himself to answer. He can feel his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He doesn’t even know how to explain.

Allison gives him a clever, critical look. “The day we all got back I found you in Dad’s study. You said you were looking for an advance on our inheritance.”

Klaus chuckles, turns back to Vanya, and tries to speak through the frog taking up residence in his throat. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. It was just a stupid box, I wasn’t even paying attention to what I threw away. I’m so, so, _so_ , _so_ , sososososo sorry.” Suddenly frantic that she believe him, he takes halting steps back to the couch. He sits back down, next to her like before, but with a foot between them. Without looking he finishes, “Pogo found me the next day and told me about the missing journal. I went looking in the dumpster right after, I swear I did. Ben was there and Five saw me so you can ask them if you don’t trust me. But it was gone. It was already gone, and then so many things happened after that I just— forgot about it. Never crossed my mind again.”

Klaus glances at his sister, who’s gone completely still. “When?” she asks quietly.

“When? I, uh—” he blinks completely nonplussed. “I, well, I took the journal the morning of the memorial. I threw it away pretty soon after, and uh, it was gone when I went looking for it the next day.”

He watches her process the information. She nods, “Ok, then.”

“I… ok? It’s ok? Just like that? _What?_ ” Vanya closes her eyes on an exhausted sigh.

“It’s not… it’s not great. I’m not saying that taking Dad’s journal didn’t have, uh, I don’t know, implications for the end of the world, but there is no way you could even have begun to guess that and—” she steeples her fingers in front of her face and takes a deep breath. “For me though... you don’t have to… Leonard hired me for violin lessons. That’s how we met. After, well after everything I looked it up. He booked the lesson through my work email. He sent the message the morning after Dad died. I didn’t see it until a few days after, and it never occurred to me there was a connection. I had even forgotten about the lesson until he showed up at my door.”

“Well sure you did,” Klaus responds weakly, “but I don't really get what you’re trying to say.”

Five squints, trying to read her again, “What is your point, Vanya?”

“My point,” she sighs, “is that his plan was already set before he would have found the journal. I don’t know what that plan was beyond the obvious: destroy The Umbrella Academy with me as the in. I- before I left Le-Jenkins’s house I saw the attic. With how obsessed he was with anything to do with you guys, I’m guessing it was an entirely different book that convinced him I was the Academy’s weak link. All finding the journal did was show him I might be even more useful than he thought.

“My point,” her voice turns hard, “is that whatever his plan was for the ordinary version of me, it was probably way worse than what he decided to do once I had powers.” She turns and lets her eyes sweep over Klaus. They’re on fire again, “I don’t see how any of that is your fault.”

He reaches out for her hand, “Christ, Vanya, it’s not yours either. You know that don’t you?” She doesn’t respond. He feels something tear inside of him. He wants to press the point, but getting intense doesn’t feel like the right move. With no clue how to proceed, he watches her become more remote with every heartbeat. It’s different in some indefinable way from the remove he was used to seeing in her, fierce instead of just faded.

Five, as is his way, just bulldozes through, “So Harold Jenkins lit the fuse almost literally. He used Dad’s notes and he just… For fuck’s sake. All of this and he was nothing more than a reckless, arrogant asshole the whole time.”

“Was? So he really is dead?” Vanya asks quietly. “I left so quickly, I wasn’t really sure.”

They all share sad, stressed looks. Diego leans forward, “Yeah he’s definitely dead. My friend Patch has been working on the investigation. Your name’s been left out of it, so you don't have to worry about any of that.”

Vanya smiles gratefully, “I didn’t mean to kill him, you know. It was just… the letter opener was the first thing I found and I don’t know. It just happened, I guess. I’m sor—”

“Don’t apologize,” Five cuts in savagely. “You might not have meant to, but I promise you if any one of us had gotten to him first, we would have. The world is literally safer without him in it. You have nothing to be sorry about.” Vanya nods stiffly and Five sighs visibly unsatisfied.

“You said he came to you pretending to want violin lessons?”

“It was the day after the memorial. I went to go check on you at the Academy, came back to the apartment, and a few hours later he just showed up for his appointment. He said he wanted to learn because he’d recently lost his father. I mean it’s all… it’s all really obvious now.

“A few days later and he was already encouraging me to get off the meds. Pushing me to audition for First Chair… he, uh, he murdered the women who actually earned that to make it happen, but I didn’t know that at the time. He was always encouraging, saying stuff like it was finally my time or that I didn’t have to keep apologizing or I was… I don’t know, he was just—” The word she is looking for is “nice” or something equally tragic. Klaus wants to cry. He is just familiar enough with this dynamic that he can feel his heart break all over again.

“Do you know when the powers started?” Bless Five’s one track mind.

“I know the first time I actually noticed them, but the last few days makes me wonder if I missed some things the first time.”

“When’s the first time you know for sure you used your powers?”

“When Leonard and I left The Academy we—”

“Jenkins was here at The Academy?” Five cuts across annoyed.

“Uh, after I got first chair and the concert, Leonard thought— He really wanted me to come here to invite everyone. That didn’t really work out I guess.”

“That’s why you were here that morning?” Allison looks a little sick.

Klaus thinks the whole thing is funny in the worst possible way. He turns to Five, “What Vanya didn't say is that she interrupted the rest of us in a family meeting. We were discussing your end of the world situation and, you know, didn’t think Vanya could possibly have any insight on the situation so we sent her away. Or rather Van stormed out when she realized we forgot her invite. Kinda impressive actually.” He hoped to get a smile out of her again, but if anything she looks even more dour.

“I was mad when I left. After, out on the street, that was the first time with my powers. Cars shifting, street lamps bending forward, a thing with the rain. I didn’t notice until Leonard pointed it out. He must have been waiting for that exact moment. He was so… eager when my abilities manifested. I couldn’t even believe they were real at first. I don’t think I wanted to. He kept calling them beautiful, powerful...

“He convinced me to go to his cabin that same afternoon. It was supposed to be a stress free place away from everything so he could start training me."

“A place away from everyone else too,” Five mutters quietly. He shakes his head at Vanya’s questioning look, “Nevermind. What happened after you got there?”

“We got settled. It was important to him that I started practicing as soon as possible. The first thing we tried didn’t go well. I was supposed to move a boat with my mind, but I didn’t really think I could actually do it. The whole thing still felt so impossible. I mean, having powers after all this time? The more I tried with the boat the stupider I felt. I wanted to stop, he got intense. I mean more than before. Enough that I actually picked up on it.

“He backed off after that, let me take a break. We went out to dinner, it was nice until… When we left there were these, uh… there were three men hanging around Leonard’s car. Big. Rough. Drunk. It turned into a fight between them and Leonard. More of a beating. I got scared and then all the noises started getting overwhelming. I thought they were going to kill him. One minute there was nothing and then—”

“Your powers activated,” Five supplies not unkindly.

“More like exploded,” Vanya sounds miserable. “The three men were all thrown. Two died there. The third was taken to the hospital. So was Leonard since the beating was so bad.”

“He lose an eye?”

Vanya jolts back in surprise, “How did you know?”

“Not important right now. I’ll explain later. What next?”

“Wait,” they all turn to an uncertain Allison. “Vanya, there’s something you-” Alison huffs and starts over, “Vanya, what happened to those men? It wasn’t your fault.”

“What do you mean? I _killed_ two people.”

Allison grabs Vanya’s hand in comfort. “First of all, no, not anymore. You haven’t hurt anyone with your powers this time. But second… when I came looking for you, I ended up driving past the place the fight happened. I talked one of the cops investigating it into taking me with him to the hospital and I was there when he spoke to the third guy. Jenkins paid those men to be there. He paid them to start that fight.”

“What do you… I mean why would he?”

“He was hoping you would lose control,” Diego answers grimly. “He was counting on the stress to bring out your powers. Allison is right. Those deaths aren’t on you.” He sighs tiredly, “There isn’t exactly legal precedent when it comes to our powers, but this was clear reckless endangerment on Jenkins."

“It was still me, though. I shouldn’t have just—”

“No! You need to trust us on this,” Allison stops her. “ _He_ should never have put you in that position. He was responsible, not you.” Allison keeps Vanya’s eyes, fiercely trying to underline her message.

Finally, Vanya sighs with a tired nod. She turns back to the rest of them. Klaus squeezes her other hand in support. “We left the hospital the next morning. When we got back to the cabin Leonard wanted to try another exercise. It went better the second time. We headed back to the cabin for a break after. Things were… different after that. I think Leonard thought I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. He kept talking about how incredible it all was, how it was going to change everything. He mentioned you guys… He wanted to keep practicing, but honestly, then, with how strange everything had become, I just wanted to play my violin. Eventually he agreed to let me. He left after that. He was gone for a long time… It was starting to make me anxious...” she trails off.

There is something very familiar about what his sister’s describing, but he’s struggling to place it. It spooks him though. Klaus can feel the beginning of goosebumps. “He got mad,” he experiments, “and then he left you completely alone.” He automatically looks for Ben. His brother has proven good at picking up on where he leaves off after all their time together.

Ben moves closer to him and Vanya, staring at her with distraught eyes. “ _He had Dad’s journal_ ,” he reminds him. Right. _Right_ . And that’s… that’s not on. That’s not. It was already one horrific thing when this was just a typical abusive relationship ( _that’s such a fucked up way to put that, being in this family is so fucking fucked_ ), but then also getting a taste of that old Reginald Hargreeve vintage. And to Vanya of all people, the only one of them who wouldn’t have the experience to clock it.

Klaus looks to the others wildly, “Any of this ringing a few bells? Sound kinda familiar? One might even say familial.”

“He had Dad’s notes,” hisses Five. Then he’s cursing again. Diego joins in. Klaus finds their anger unbelievably soothing. Allison and Luther have both gone internal, maybe thinking back to their own memories. Klaus looks to Vanya, and of course she’s the only one not overly affected by this information. Because of course. This was her first time ( _that she’s being allowed to remember_ ). He’ll have to do his best to explain.

“Van, the thing is… Everything you’ve said… it’s all, I don’t know, Dad 101. Forcing your powers out with stress, obsessing over training, leaving you alone in punishment—those are basically the cornerstones of the Hargreeves Educational Model.” He pats her leg, feeling the inadequacy of the gesture immediately. Where were _these_ kinds of lessons when they were growing up?

“I think it’s even deeper than that,” Five adds. “The fight with the three guys was more than just stress. Jenkins specifically created a situation in which he needed to be saved. What would we have called that when we were kids?”

“A mission,” Allison breathes out.

“Something to get her more invested in his larger plan. Vanya, you even said it yourself. Training went more smoothly after that. All of this is exactly what Dad used to put us through.” Klaus watches what Five said work through her.

She starts shaking her head, “I mean, no, it wasn’t as bad as… Just, everything that Dad put you through. Leonard was nicer about it at least.” Klaus and Allison make equally wounded noises, both reaching out from either side.. That’s not. No. Abso-positively not. That’s not the sort of thing they can let take root. If there is one thing, just one thing they can spare her from, just one part of this nightmare they can take back, please, please, please let it be this. He doesn’t know where to begin. He looks at the others hoping beyond hope, finally landing on Diego. Maybe there's some helpful police training he got before that whole deal collapsed.

_Character Aside #24: Diego thinks Vanya’s whole story with Harold Jenkins is the worst thing he’s ever heard, and she’s not even done with it. There were all sorts of technical words for what he’d done (grooming is the loudest one that keeps coming to mind, but the deliberate way he kept her isolated burns just as bright), and that was all before finding out it was actually a one-two punch with some traditional Hargreeves moves thrown in. He knew it would be bad, he tried to prepare. He’s talked to Allison, knows about some of what she’s been reading, but that’s still just a drop in an ocean. An ocean created in one fucking week. And thirty years give-or-take. It’s also an ocean they had a hand in making. No room for pretending now, the last time he spoke directly to Vanya it was to tell her to leave the house. She walked straight to Jenkins after. And now? Who are they trying to kid? They’re just not qualified, they just aren’t. But they have to say something. Jesus, she’s already internalizing this shit just like Dad taught them to. He’s got to say something._

“He wasn’t” Diego croaks, blinking back the hint of a tear. “He really wasn’t, and I’ll say that to you as many times as you need to hear it, Vanya, but I need you to listen when I say there wasn’t anything nice about what Harold Jenkins did, no matter how he said it.”

Vanya looks shocked at their brothers display, which is honestly kind of fair. “I… It’s fine, Diego. It’s not… Allison tried to warn me, if I’d just…”

“No,” Diego groans, “Don’t. Whatever you were going to say just don’t.” He takes a deep breath, “Look, everything that you’ve described so far? The stuff Allison told me? It fits a pattern. It’s all textbook signs of an- an emotionally abusive relationship.” Vanya looks like she’s about to cut in, but Diego stops her with a raised hand and a shrewd look. 

“I’m not trying to say it was obvious or your fault for falling for it. When I said textbook, I just meant they’re the classic moves. And they’re classic because they work. That’s not your fault, and it’s not fine. I just— it’s ok if you aren’t fine.” Vanya’s opens and closes her mouth a few times. Diego raises an eyebrow, “As many times as you need to hear this, Vanya.”

Vanya exhales before bowing her head into her hands. Allison rubs gentle circles on her back. Eventually Vanya looks back up at Diego with a small nod. Klaus makes a giant, glittery mental note to thank his brother later. This is barely a scratch on the surface, but at least it’s something.

Before the silence can get too heavy, Five clears his throat. Quietly, he starts, “From what Allison told us, I assume she showed up after he left you alone?” Vanya nods, careful to avoid eye contact. “She told us what happened so we can skip that part,” he offers.

_Character Aside #25: Five is pretty sure he’s got the entire timeline of apocalypse now. It has taken an awful and absurd shape. Funny, but also Not. He goes over the steps in his mind. It would have been so easy to stop before. And now? He still can’t see a clear way to fix it. It’s something like this: their father assembles seven super children because somehow (still needs to work this particular detail out) he knew the world was going to end. He keeps the seventh child in a stranglehold because he thinks she’s too dangerous. In doing so he turns her powers into something even worse. Thirty years later he kills himself so the other children can save the world. This jumpstarts Harold Jenkins's plans. Five comes back to stop the apocalypse, but runs away from the one detail he needed to pay attention to. If he had stuck around Vanya’s apartment that night, hung out for a few hours the next day, he could even have been there when Jenkins first showed up. Instead, Jenkins is allowed to rip off a bandaid he probably never really understood. Vanya brings that man to their house, interrupts a meeting to discuss the end of the world (to discuss her, but they didn’t know, no one did), and gets pushed out again. Pushed out at every stage, Jenkins must have guessed they would, and was ready to pull her even further away after. Five shows up minutes too late with the name Harold Jenkins on a piece of paper meant to save them. It never occurred to him to ask why Vanya wasn’t part of the meeting. What could she do that they couldn’t? He put her away a long time ago. She had become just one of the seven billion lives lost to the mass extinction event he had jumped into. Always a casualty, never a cause._

“The part where I tried to kill my own sister?” Vanya asks with that same tone of bitterness turned inward.

“You didn’t,” Five corrects exhaustedly. “No, don’t argue. Allison told us about the rumor. _Both_ of them. You did hurt her, obviously, but you never tried to kill her.” Luther and Diego are looking at Five with equal intensity, wary and curious respectively. So is Allison, but with a far more neutral expression. Klaus wonders if she knows what distinction Five is trying to make, because Klaus isn’t sure he is. Ben, as has been true for most of this conversation, keeps his eyes on Vanya.

“I cut her throat!” she says incredulously.

“Her vocal cords actually,” Five answers unbothered. “Without any damage to anything else. That takes precision, believe me. You weren’t trying to kill her, just stop her from finishing a rumor. You were scared so your powers acted instinctively. You did _just_ enough to stop a threat without causing any more damage than was necessary.”

She shakes her head, “That’s nice, Five, but only a technicality. Allison was bleeding out, and I left her there.”

“But that’s not what happened.” Allison uses gentle hands to turn Vanya toward her. “You didn't just leave.” She tilts her head in concern, studying Vanya’s face. “Do you remember what happened after I got hurt?”

“I don’t— I’m not sure…”

“It’s ok,” Allison soothes. “Listen, the moment you saw I was hurt you powered down. You were panicking, but you were there, you were trying to stop the bleeding, you were trying to help. But then Jenkins showed up. Oh, Vanya,” Allison links her hands with Vanya, “you didn’t leave me. _He took you_. He grabbed you by the arm, and he dragged you out of the cabin. You never meant to leave. You didn’t have a choice.” Vanya lets herself be pulled in so her head is resting on Allison’s shoulder.

Voice small and worryingly toneless, Vanya says, “I don’t remember that. After you were hurt… I don’t know. The next thing I remember is being back at his house. I was in the bathtub. There was so much blood, and he was trying to wipe it all away.”

Klaus feels actually, truly, honestly, physically sick as half of his brain immediately starts to imagine what Vanya is describing and the other half runs out screaming. Tiny Vanya covered in their sister’s blood, naked and probably near catatonic based on the lost memories, all at the mercy of the madman who engineered the whole thing. He would scream if she hadn’t continued her horrifyingly toneless speech.

“I didn’t know if you were alive. It seemed impossible. I thought you must be dead. I wanted to find out. I wanted to come to The Academy. He said we had to leave. He kept saying that you would come after us. He said we were a team now. I knew it would be ok if I could get here. I just wanted to explain. He was sure you would never understand. He said he was the only one who ever could. He made me repeat—over and over and over again—he kept making me say I was special.” Vanya shuttered. It almost makes up for the lack of emotion on her face.

“Later, I”m not sure how long… I was in the kitchen when I found his bag. When I found Dad’s journal. And I knew that everything Allison tried to tell me was true. He came downstairs with packed bags. I asked about the book. He said he was only trying to protect me from… from my family. He talked about Dad being afraid of me, and how he never was, and how that made him the only person who had ever accepted me. He said that you all had gone along with everything Dad did. But it just… the moment I saw the journal it was like a flipped switch. Nothing he was saying worked anymore.

“I asked him who Harold Jenkins was. He tried. He said he was someone like us, me and him. Someone lonely and mistreated and desperate to be loved. But it didn’t matter. None of it. I told him I was leaving. That’s when he got angry. He told me about murdering the woman who had been first chair. He thought it would prove that everything he did was for me. And then he tried to talk about you guys again, about how we were in danger.” Disgust was the first emotion that started to color her voice. “He said he turned me into a god by opening my eyes. That all of you were small and that... that he was the only person I needed. I told him I needed my family.

“That’s when he started to say Dad was right about me. He said I was weak. Pathetic. Nothing. Ordinary. Even less. My powers started. It wasn’t just what he was saying. Or not just that. He had the journal in his hands and after every word he would slap it. He kept doing it until it was the only thing I could hear. I tried to tell him to stop. He didn’t. After… well I immediately left after it was over.”

“We saw the aftermath. Probably only a few hours later,” Five says. “Vanya, I’m— I’m sorry.” He and Vanya have another one of their silent conversations. Klaus is grateful for the opportunity to wipe a few stray tears. His lets his eyes sweep over Vanya. Strong, he thinks. After all that. She finds the book, accepts what it means, gets herself out. He’s not sure he would be that strong. He knows he hadn’t been in the past. It’s not really a surprise though. Their father had taken one look at her at four years old and he’d known. The first chance she got and she brought the house down. They’re all so used to thinking of her as small, but she seems almost giant to him now.

“You came to The Academy on your own?” Five asks.

“Not immediately. I went home first. I just needed a moment where I could act like it wasn’t real. It even worked for awhile. It wasn't until I took out my violin to practice and Allison’s blood was on the bow... I couldn’t pretend after that.” She looks up, shrugs, goes back to being completely toneless, “I took a taxi. I was finally going to get a chance to explain. Luther was here when I arrived. He took me downstairs. You all know what happened next.”

_Character Aside #26: Even with the gaps Allison can hear all of the things Vanya isn’t saying. Thinking about everything her sister said about her last hour with that monster, the thing that hits her the most is how much Vanya believed in their family. It had taken a lot, far too much really, to break Harold Jenkins’s hold (the pain, the panic, the fear her voice was lost forever), but once it was broken… Her first thought was to get back to them. She trusted in them enough to come here. She trusted them even after Luther hid her away. Allison remembers how Vanya looked from the other side of the glass, how desperately she looked to her siblings. She must have really believed one of them would save her. She wonders how long it took after they walked away for the last of her faith to fade._

“From what I’ve heard, that’s a very nice way of putting what happened,” Five says with a wry voice.

Vanya looks down, “How should I put it?” Klaus thinks it’s terribly funny that of all the traumatic shit his sister’s been awfully brave about sharing, the one thing she can’t talk about is the homegrown trauma. No one cuts you to the quick quite like family.

_Character Aside #27: Luther isn’t sure what to make of Vanya sparing the details of her arrival at the house. Everyone already knows, but she wouldn’t realize that. He’s not sure if keeping quiet is meant to be a kindness to him or one for her. He thought she understood what he had done earlier. The funny thing is that he's less sure that he does after hearing all of the details that led up to her meeting him at The Academy. Even before the moon he realizes his life had been small. His whole world bound into a single square block of forty-two bedrooms and nineteen bathrooms. Luther suspects Vanya has endured more real life in the past week(s) than all of Luther’s twenty-nine years. He doesn’t know how to fit that knowledge into the small space that Seven has always occupied._

“Ok,” Five backs off with a nod, “The chamber downstairs, you understand what it does?”

“It soundproof to block my powers.”

“And just generally soul-crushing,” adds Klaus with a laugh. Finally, finally, he is able to coax another smile out of Vanya. 

Diego quirks a curious eyebrow, “If it’s soundproof how’d you get out?”

“Um, after everyone left, I started hyperventilating. And during… I started to hear…” Vanya stops. Klaus is inexplicably convinced that he needs to hear the rest of that sentence.

“What did you hear?” he whispers.

She looks directly at Klaus, “I could hear my heart beating.”

Oh, oh, oh. _His sister is painfully, devastatingly, cataclysmically, apocalyptically alive._

He peeks over Vanya’s shoulder to make eye contact with Allison. Her smile is soft too. She gets it, of course she does. He glances at Ben too to see the same. It feels unspeakably tender.

Naturally, Five wouldn’t know sentiment if it hit him. “Dad was such an idiot,” he snorts, “He should have realized a chamber like that would never be able to hold back your powers forever.”

“To be fair,” Vanya scrunches her nose, “it did work for almost thirty years.” And look at that, maybe this will be the kind of thing they can joke about eventually. Diego’s laugh may only be a half startled snort, but even Five cracks a little smile-grimace. The whole thing is a nice, tension free moment. A brief distraction for the part of the story he thinks they must all want to avoid.

If there’s one thing Klaus has learned in this life it’s that all good things end.

Vanya gathers herself one final time, storing up courage; Klaus wonders where she gets it from.

“What do you need to know about what happened next?”

Five looks down, “Whatever you’re willing to talk about. Whatever you remember. If you need a start: Did you powers feel different this time? How aware were you of what was happening? Why did you go to the concert?” Vanya runs her hands through her hair and begins again.

“Ok. Yes, the powers definitely felt different. My level of awareness changed from moment to moment. And I went to the concert because I just really wanted to play.” Vanya shakes her head and closes her eyes. She does not open them again. “I remember almost everything, I think, but a lot of it didn’t feel like it was really happening to me. I think— I’d call it a fall. I fell into my powers and into... pure feeling. And it's not... I'm not saying I’m not responsible for the things I did, but I don’t think I made a single conscious decision after I was put in the cell. It was just… reaction and instinct and emotion.

“When I got out I went looking for you. All of you, I mean. Not to hurt you, I don’t think, but maybe depending on what you did or said. I remember walking through the house and I couldn’t find anyone, but everywhere I went there was a memory or- or a bad feeling and the energy would reach out to try and make it go away… What happened with Pogo—he found me first. I think he tried to talk me down. It worked until I asked if he’d known about me. I don’t. It wasn’t a decision. The next second he was just thrown and I never… I never looked to see where he landed. After that I… I went away for awhile.

“I felt the house go down, and I guess that was enough because I walked away after. I went to my apartment. Going to the concert… it really just was me wanting to play violin. I’d been stuck in third chair for so long, it never occurred to me to walk away from a chance to play first. That's what I most wanted in that moment, so that’s what I did. I don’t think it was deeper than that. I felt like myself. I even took the bus to get there…

“I knew it wasn’t normal, I mean there was a thing with a car honking that was—so I still knew something was wrong, But it was just one small feeling in the middle of a storm. And then even that went away when I got to the theater.” She stops speaking, flattens her lips, and swallows. She opens her eyes. Klaus is unsurprised to see the blazing quality back again. Or that the silver rings have overtaken her natural brown.

“When I played violin before there was always something in the way. I’ve played long enough that I have all of the technical skills, but the thing that makes music _music_ … When I stopped taking the pills, I started to understand why. Without them I could actually feel what I was playing. That was nothing to how it was when I played that night. With my power it was… it felt, I felt…” She stops speaking. They can all see the effort it’s taking her not to finish the sentence.

Five tries, “Powerful? In control?” She shakes her head, jaw working furiously.

“What?” Klaus asks breathlessly when she doesn’t answer. “What did it feel like?”

“For the first time in my entire life,” she swallows, “I felt alive.” Two silent tear tracks begin making their way down her face. “More than that, I felt whole without ever realizing I never had been before... When Dad cut off my powers it was more than just— It’s like I was cut in half. And then everything with the rumor and the medication I lost even more. And now what’s left it’s all... But up there, it was just a moment, but all the pieces came back together and they fit...” Until her brothers showed up break everything again. Klaus hates being part of this family, he really does sometimes.

“You really just went to the concert to play your violin,” Five repeats agitated.

“Yeah, I think so, but that doesn’t— It didn’t take much to become something else. I don’t think it really matters why I went there considering how everything ended.”

“No,” Five laughs humorlessly, “you wouldn’t.” He stands up abruptly and walks back to the window so he has an excuse not to look at them. No one else says anything after. A bad, abrupt ending to a bad, abrupt story.

Klaus is too tired to check on the others. He tips his head back onto the couch and closes his eyes. He feels guilty, because there’s a really good chance Ben has something brilliant or kind or brilliantly kind to say, but he just _can’t_ right now. Allison is whispering something to Vanya, thank god, so at least someone has the energy for a heart.

The stillness in the room stretches into staleness and, as is typical even when he’s this exhausted, he feels the itch to do something to disrupt it. Tiredly he shuffles through a series of increasingly hilarious scenarios, before deciding most are beyond his current means, and probably a little disrespectful considering the last few hours. Their sister had, after all, just shared more than they probably had the right to ask for.

So that leaves him with something very basic, but also honest. He takes a deep breath.

“Is anyone else like really hungry right now? Because I mean, I’m just completely starving. We’re talking so hungry I could probably eat the fucking moon.”

Ok. So maybe not completely respectful, but—

“Yeah, I could eat,” Vanya says through laughter that’s only part way strangled by stress. It’s not the whole war, but it’s a start.

5.

What is currently happening feels a little too late for breakfast and a little too early for lunch. Five is far too dignified to call it brunch. Either way this moment of informal, communal dining in the downstairs kitchen has all of the life that their last few lunches at the real dining table have lacked.

Just like they’ve unconsciously been doing for the last repeated week, they are mostly following Vanya’s lead. Her mood is surprisingly light all things considered. She looks loose and happy, but still distant in an intangible way. She has kept mostly quiet, but just present enough to send affectionate smiles at all the appropriate moments. Allison, Klaus, and Ben through translation have been great at keeping the conversation going. Diego is less tense then he’s seen him in days. Luther is no worse than awkward, which is better than before.

And really? The more he thinks about it, he doesn’t really need a name for the single nicest moment he can recall with all of his siblings. Not just in recent memory, but also a pretty decent contender for their whole entire lives. Only illicit midnight donut runs come even close. (Bowling was great, but just enough of an ordeal planning wise that they never managed all seven of them at once. In fact, most of their field trips only happened a few of them at a time.)

The point is that this is a really good time they’re having and Five is working really hard not to ruin it, but that doesn’t make him less worried about everything. And he is very worried. He doesn’t think he’s being unfair in thinking Vanya’s strange calm is going to disappear ( _ soon probably with how she pushed herself in reliving everything for and in front of them _ ) and the snap back could very well be extreme. Even if she  _ can  _ keep it up, he is half convinced that the Commission is already lying in wait to force the issue. It runs right into paranoia, but all of his life experience proves that it's only the paranoid survive.

Vanya glances over at him. It’s all he needs to know she gets it too. Well that makes sense. It’s both in keeping with the grit she’s already shown since they took her from the basement and with everything he remembers about her as a child. He’s not sure, but he gets the vague impression from the others that they’re a little surprised by Vanya. Certainly, a few fundamental facts about her have shifted, but when he looks at her, he does not see a stranger. He only sees  _ more _ of his favorite sibling and oldest friend in the world.

With this in mind, it’s no real surprise that she would end up being just as hung up on the end of all life on Earth as he is. As different as their childhood temperaments were, the two of them usually arrived at the same conclusions. They had both looked at their situation growing up—she ever observing, he always theorizing—and both wanted to act. Remembrances like that make thinking about his first night back an absolute torture. He lists all of the things he could have done and all that they didn’t know until it turns into a long chorus of if only, if only, if only.

He cannot allow himself to ignore those knowledge gaps now, especially since there are so many left. His sister really is as she has always been, but there are sixteen years he is finally beginning to accept the existence of. From his perspective he was gone for three times longer than they had time to miss him. Sixteen years felt trivial, especially when he had a cheat code in the form of a no holds barred tell-all. His siblings were older, maybe a little worn down, but painfully young and therefore supposedly unchanged. But they are different. He spent so much of his first week desperately avoiding any kind of meaningful re-connection. He was afraid of distraction, afraid to stop moving, but now he thinks he’d also been afraid to get too close to that difference.

He runs, it’s who he is by virtue of his powers. Time, movement, consequence, change. These are the things that make up his bones. What a joke thinking he could use his abilities to outrun them. How long did he think he could avoid the gravitational pull of cause-and-effect? How long was he planning on avoiding his own reflection?

His father would probably say it’s a foolish thing to confuse powers with psychology, but Vanya’s story implies a million different ways their father was foolish first.

But then philosophical questions on powers and how to confront his own life are literally problems to be savored for tomorrow. Magical thinking it may be, but he still can’t help his wasteland born belief that their only goal right now is to survive to see the second day of April. 

Have they done enough? Have they actually done anything at all?

How much risk is acceptable risk when the entire world is at stake? ( _ There is a shadow of another question he cannot bring himself to ask. If it’s true it’s unthinkable, so he is determined not to think of it at all. This is the final thing he will give himself permission to run away from. _ )

He stares at the mostly relaxed faces of the only flesh and blood people he has ever cared about and desperately wishes the problem of an apocalypse belonged to any other family but his own. That thought strikes him as both stupidly selfish and distressingly young. But then he watches Klaus tell a story with his whole body and he decided to indulge for at least a few more minutes.

…..

They end up back in the living room with no real discussion. Once the food was gone the kitchen tilted from cozy to stifling, and there really isn’t a more open, better lit space in the house. The return to this location does, however, make it even more difficult to hold back what he’s been trying not to say. They are even sitting more or less where they had been over an hour ago.

In the end he is saved by Luther, his absurd, single-minded, big brother. Always dedicated to the point of madness.

“Well, Five,” Luther begins, “what do you think? Harold Jenkins is gone. The concert isn’t happening. Have we stopped the apocalypse?” Even Five knows there was probably a more tactful way of putting that, but a glance at Vanya reveals she is looking at Luther with a patient, slightly ironic smile. She answers at the same time he stalls.

“I’m not sure.”

“No, of course not.” 

Five glares at Vanya. She looks back amused, shrugs, “we both know I’m not wrong. You know there’s only one guarantee. You already decided last time. What do you think has really changed?”

Absolutely everything. Nothing at all. The whole world balanced on the edge of a knife. He stares at Vanya wishing he could misunderstand her. He even lets himself hate her a little, just the length of a handful of heartbeats, for forcing the one question he didn’t want asked. He wonders if the others have understood what she is suggesting yet.

Vanya continues to look at him with sympathetic eyes. “It’s not like you, Five, to ignore the answer to an equation just because you don’t like it,” she says kindly. He would prefer anger. 

Damn her. The peaceful air she’s had all morning feels suddenly sinister. And damn her for putting this all on him. She doesn’t even know about his cold-blooded past as an assassin, so this is squarely based on what she thinks he’s capable of on his own. But that’s not really it, which he knows as bitterly as he knows what a decades old twinkie tastes like.

See right now the apocalypse only exists between the two of them. Her potential, his past. It is a place found only in the power of her heartbeat and inscribed in the neural pathways of his own mind. The truth she will not ignore: she can feel the beginning of the apocalypse like a bow in her hand. The truth he will not admit to: he is afraid he created the apocalypse by jumping into it. 

He thinks back to her describing her fall into her powers, replays the words in his mind, and for the first time he hears through the fear and shame. For the first time he hears  _ longing _ .

“We don’t— we don’t know it will happen again.”

“The point,” she corrects, “is that we don’t know it won’t.”

“Timelines change. That’s the point. Things changed after I came back. I know they did.” He cannot hide the edge of desperation in his voice.

“All that means,” she answers, still quiet, still kind, “it that we know of at least two timelines I ended the world in. Are we really going to risk a third?”

“Wait, just wait a minute,” Klaus cuts in. Good,  _ good _ , thank god, let someone else take this so Five can fucking breathe. “I know I’m usually the slow kid, but you cannot possibly be discussing what I think you are.” He’s all anger and acid; Five leans into his brother’s edge with abandon, tries to make it into a coat until he can achieve some critical distance.

“Why not?” he shoots back with undirected bitterness. “Like she said, we already did once.”

Vanya, eerily calm, turns to Klaus. “If I were anyone else, it wouldn’t even be a question. Just because you happen to know me—”

“Happen to know you? For fuck’s sake, Vanya, we don’t just know you, you’re our sister.” Vanya tries to place a comforting hand on Klaus, but he jumps back like it burns. She looks down and sighs.

“The thing is, that’s not actually a good reason to risk every single life on Earth.” She looks back up, almost apologetic, but not enough to stop.

“We don’t even know they’re still at risk,” Diego cuts across angrily.

Vanya shrugs again, “So long as my powers exist they will always be at risk.” So calm, so certain, so frighteningly ready. How could he have ever thought a jump was all it would take to fix her? The time it takes to repair something must always be more than it took to shatter. “It’s just not,” she adds, “it’s just not worth it.”

“What isn’t?” Klaus chokes, “Your life?” Anger bleeding into incredulity into grief in the span of four short words.

She smiles sadly while successfully managing to put a gentle hand on his face. “No, of course it isn’t. Not against the whole rest of the world. Whose possibly could be?”

_ Character Aside #28: Klaus has always had a warped relationship with death. It’s unavoidable with powers like his and he has never made a single attempt to swerve into something more healthy (accept perhaps accidentally in Vietnam the first time, and maybe intentionally in Vietnam the second time, but if so a warzone is a wild place to try that kind of thing, and doesn’t that just say everything). So it probably shouldn’t be so horrible hearing it from someone else. It’s the acceptance, though, which is pushing this from something merely sad and painful to something soul-crushing. This is exactly what he had been worrying about when she was missing, but he’d let himself start to hope once she was here. Always such a mistake in this family. And he should have known (as if coming to this house has ever helped anybody). He should have realized what going back to, but not inside the cage meant, should have understood her rejection of the pills better. Not once did she believe them when they said she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. And why did he think she would? He never had. They both know the only thing life promises is to make everyone a ghost in the end. This whole time, and all Vanya’s been saying is: I cannot go back to living dead, so just let me die alive. _

Five watches Klaus lean into Vanya’s hand, before giving up and pressing against her whole side. He thinks the word is crestfallen. He has been one of the strongest through this whole reset. He wonders if Klaus also feels betrayed to discover Vanya has been on the opposing side this whole time.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Allison says decisively. Five really has been underestimating her, the only one who never went along with the old plan. “Vanya, look,  _ listen _ , we are not going to sit here and decide if you get to live. Your powers are yours and we’re going to help you. That’s it.”

“How will you help me?” Vanya replies like Allison is the fragile one needing to be indulged.

“We’ll train you. We’ll listen to you,” Allison must realize the problem with the second one, because she looks like she wants to take it back a second after she says it.

Vanya ignores it and continues, “And what happens when it goes wrong? What will you do when I lose control?” Allison cannot, of course, argue that won’t happen. They all know better. “All it took was a few hours to get me riled enough for an apocalypse.” That’s not right, not really, but who is going to point out this problem is actually thirty years old when the stakes are this high.

“You’re our sister,” Allison tries, tone still unwavering. “We’ll find a way.”

“Until you can’t. I already told Klaus, me being your sister isn’t actually—”

“You’re  _ my _ sister,” she forces, “I love you. It’s not happening.  _ I  _ already decided this at the theater.”

The apologetic look comes back into Vanya’s eyes, “I know. I’m sorry.”  _ You decided wrong _ is left unsaid, but punches through Five anyway.

“I love you, Vanya, please.” And now even Allison begins to crumble

“I know,” she sighs, “I’m sorry. I am, honestly.” Vanya purses her lips. It’s the first moment of anything like hesitation she has shown. Five might find it encouraging in literally any situation but this one. “But you’ll have Claire. She’ll be safe and you can go back to LA and fix things with her. It’ll all be ok. Eventually.” She tries for a smile. It makes it worse.

“No, of course it wouldn’t be ok. It’s not an either-or. I mean— I-  _ please _ .”

_ Character Aside #29: Allison could rumor her. The power is building on the tip of her tongue. It might even make a kind of sense. A rumor is how this started; the damage runs so much deeper than she had thought. Two words were all it took to convince her sister she wasn’t valuable (reinforced at every possible turn by everyone she’s ever cared about). This wouldn’t be fixing so much as undoing. Her old rumor is nothing but a weed grown wild; she can pull out the roots she planted. Some people would call it redemption. Their dad is dead. She’s older now. She can be more careful with her words. But careful? Careful, that’s the key. To take care, to be caring. Her rumors have never been that before, caring that is. Or kind. Maybe they could be, but maybe they can’t, and isn’t not knowing the thing that Vanya is talking about. Isn’t uncertainty precisely what their sister is saying they must now take responsibility for? There is a selflessness in that suggestion that Allison neither acknowledges nor appreciates. It is completely foreign to her, somebody who has never needed to accommodate anyone before. If this is what the other side is like, she will have no part of it. There must be better ways to be a better person. So she will not rumor her sister, but she won’t listen to her either. Maybe this is what compromise feels like. _

Allison goes silent, troubled looking, but not completely defeated. Five gives her this moment, figuring it’s his turn again.

“Why are you so sure we  _ can _ do something? You’re right. We tried to at the theater. It didn’t work.” Vanya frowns around words she will not say out loud. Five squints until he thinks he can hear them anyway. “Allison,” he fills in. The sister in question looks up, but that’s not what he meant. “You knew Allison was behind you on the stage. You let her get to you holding a gun.” And why wouldn’t she have known? She had stopped them well enough.

Vanya shrugs again. He’s starting to hate the smallness of the gesture, like she thinks they’re talking about things that don't really matter. “I knew things had gotten bad. I knew I needed to be stopped. I knew I was killing you.”

“Was, maybe, but you didn’t. You can’t keep bringing it up like it still means anything now that everything has been reset.”

“I can if we’re talking about potential danger. I had already killed at least six people before the concert even started.”

“So what?” he explodes. He’d been grudgingly impressed, if highly resistant to her logic so far, but this line of argument is completely infantile to him. “Stop acting like you’re the only person in this room who’s killed someone. I haven’t told you everything that happened after my jump, but believe me when I say I have the body count of a medium-sized country.” She has no reaction to this, which makes him feel peevish and unkind. “And you really think I’m the only one? Diego is a fucking vigilante. Klaus went to war. Ben used to rip whole rooms of people apart. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what The Umbrella Academy actually was.”

“I think,” Vanya replies, tone infuriatingly level, “I am the only one who is thinking about what The Umbrella Academy was.”

Five scoffs, “Then you’ve read too many comic books.”

She shakes her head, “No, not like that.” She looks away, up and off to the side. For the first time ( _ ever _ ), Five truly has no idea what she’s trying to say. It stops him in his tracks. “At a certain point, we need to really think about what my isolation from all of you was meant to accomplish. Why there aren’t any pictures of me. Why Number Seven never officially existed.” He realizes she is looking in the direction of the line of family portraits that aren’t quite visible from where they are sitting. When Klaus took over her room, he also erased the only thing in this house that would prove she’d ever been here at all. Five sits down on the couch feeling heavy and horrified.

The worst part is how easily they fell into it.

_ Character Aside #30: Diego didn’t sleep the first night of the reset. Well he’s pretty sure none of them did, but he knows at some point he tried. After learning about how Luther put Vanya in her cell, he was haunted by her small face on the other side of the glass every time he closed his eyes. What got to him most was that he hadn’t looked back when he walked away. As a form of self-punishment he tried to imagine, as Klaus had brought up, anyone else being locked away like that, and if he would have fought any harder for them. The problem was no matter who he thought of, he could never imagine anyone else even making it to the cell. (They would have fought themselves, for one thing. (And that’s it’s own problem because he can think of less than a handful of times Vanya has stood up for herself, and each time—the book, the fight before she went to the cabin, Allison, this house, now if it counts—resulted in something worse than the last. He wonders if she’ll ever try again.) But more than that, he really believes Luther would never have done that to anyone else. No active member of The Umbrella Academy could ever have been such an unknown and therefore so dangerous to Number One. Dad played them all like… well like a fucking violin. _

“Just so we’re clear,” Diego says enraged, “you, the person who wrote a 300-page, public fuck you to the old man, are suggesting we kill our own sister because it’s what Dad would have wanted.” How awful to hear it stated so plain. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on Vanya, who looks at Diego with a wry expression like she’s finally grown bored with Number Two’s anger. “What, now is when you start agreeing with him?”

“I still don’t agree with almost everything. I will never agree with how he treated you,” Vanya answers with a slight edge. Her words have such a glaring omission. How sad, how upsetting. Five cannot understand how it had gotten this bad? “And I don't think,” she adds a little softer, “I don't think he ever should never have put this mission on you.”

“You’re not a mission, Vanya,” Klaus croaks. He’s stayed pressed against her shoulder this entire time. He doesn’t look up. “Do you even understand what you’re asking? Do you know what this would do to us?”

She shifts a little so that Klaus has to separate from her. She uses that to guide his face up so that he’s looking at her with a gentle hand on his chin. She closes her eyes with a long, tired sigh. She opens them with a shudder that shakes the nearest walls in time with her body. They are fully silver now.

“Yes, I do know. Even better than you right now.” She releases Klaus with a small little push. Another shake and deep breath to gather everything back together. Her eyes close, her eyes open. They stay silver.

“Vanya,” Diego sighs, “you’re not going to convince us… you’re not talking like someone who’s going to end the world. You just aren’t that dangerous.”

“And your plan is to wait until I am? You need the world to be in active danger before we do something about it?” she asks. Five hears faint annoyance in her voice. It occurs to him she hadn’t anticipated this much push-back. It makes his bad mood even worse.

“It won’t be, though,” Luther says, expression inscrutable. He’s been so quiet this morning it’s a small shock to hear him now. “Diego is right. You aren’t that dangerous on your own. And I… I should have known that. I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry for ...” He can’t bring himself to finish, but even that much is unprecedented as far as Five’s aware.

_ Character Aside #31: Luther is trying to finish the sentence, but he has so little practice to fall back on. It is one thing to apologize for a small accident like breaking a door because he misjudged his own strength. An error in judgement is another thing entirely. And admitting to one is even worse. It is against every single thing he’s ever known about being a leader, everything Dad ever taught him. That’s exactly the problem according to everyone else. He’s been trying, but he still needs to work out that bit. He’s got all of things his team has been trying to tell him to puzzle through. And he’s got to find out why they didn’t mean anything to him before. Honestly, he’s not sure they mean much to him now. The truth is, it’s not anything they said that has brought him to the brink of reconsidering. No, what’s got him feeling all twisted is Vanya saying all of the things he’s been keeping quiet. It should sound brave or noble. Instead it all sounds ugly coming from the person he convinced himself couldn’t be trusted. Dedication can turn into such an awful thing. _

“I was wrong,” Luther tries again.

Vanya stares at Luther, matching his unreadable expression exactly. Unlike she’s been doing for the others, she doesn’t appear to be making any attempt at softness. To his credit, Luther doesn’t flinch. “You did what you were taught to do.” It is spoken neither as condemnation or forgiveness. Perfectly matter of fact. “All of us, we’re just what Dad turned us into. Nothing more or less than what he made us.”

Luther looks troubled, “What did he make you, Vanya?” She smiles just slightly.

Her eyes glance briefly at Allison, “Dangerous,” then Diego, “a liability,” finally back at Luther, “a bomb.”

“You don’t have to be,” Luther tries again, sounding like he needs reassurance. It’s not the first time Five has felt like Luther somehow ended up the youngest of all of them.

_ Character Aside #32: Kindness, Vanya knows, is not something that just happens. It is often bitter work. And right now? She is working harder than she ever has before to make this situation as painless as possible. And her siblings, as always, are making everything so much more difficult than it needs to be. They cannot let her have this one thing. Even now they will not listen. The clean, washed away feeling is still here, which is good, because it’s the only thing keeping her from getting mean. She wants to point out they have all chosen the most inconvenient time imaginable to start caring. She could throw back the hypocrisy of them going back on a choice they had already made just because this time they have to look her in the eyes. She imagines shouting that for once the whole world shouldn’t revolve around them and it’s her turn to do the saving. She's not going to say any of it though. It won’t help. They won’t understand (her). They never do. She knows that now, twenty-nine years too late, and it’s why she can’t really trust them with this. _

“Maybe, maybe not,” another of her damn shrugs, “We’ve run out of the time to find out.” Vanya glances at him; he immediately stands up from the couch go stand by the window to avoid it. In a better situation she would probably have found him doing something so childish funny. He doesn’t look back to see her reaction now.

So he misses the moment Ben appears. Just a bit of moment and his dead brother is kneeling in the space between Vanya and the coffee table. They do not touch, and from what he can see here, he doubts they could. Five assumes the only reason Ben hasn’t appeared before is that Klaus was truly wrung out. Ben being blue and see-through seems to prove that; Vanya’s powers probably aren't currently active enough to boost the signal.

They are also not speaking—no one is. This is not the joyful reunion from before.

Six and Seven stare at each other for a long time.

She breaks first. Five supposes death would give anyone patience.

“I know what you're thinking, but it's not guilt or fear. I mean, I am afraid and I do feel guilty, but that’s not what this is.”

_ (Character Aside #33: Ben knows that actually. He sees all the ways that the Horror and Vanya’s powers are different, but even with that he knows he comes closer than anyone else to understanding where her head's at. He knows that the thing Vanya's wanted most was to love and be loved by her family and to be useful. He can tell how careful she’s been so far and how much she’s just trying to help. He’s proud of her and he’s sad for her. He wishes she knew how to ask for more and to give herself a little credit. Both of those things deserve more than a single conversation, and she’s not any more likely to believe them from him than the others. But that still leaves one thing that only he can say. The one thing he knows that she can’t, and he needs to get her to understand.) _

Ben stays silent, waiting.

“What would you do?” Vanya asks a little more desperate. “What would you do if you woke up one day and the Horror had destroyed everything? What would you od if you could stop it?”

“I’m not you,” Ben answers softly, “and you aren’t me. I think you already know what I would do. I think maybe you already know what I did.” Vanya shudders and looks away. “It was something in your book. A single sentence, very subtle, could have gone either way, but when I read it I wondered.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t  _ know _ , but I thought, sometimes. You were in so much pain those last few months, so weighed down. You always hated everything Dad made you do, and it wasn’t getting better... I never thought it was intentional, but maybe just... just a moment of hesitation…” Ben makes a motion to grab Vanya’s hands with a sad smile, but stops when he realizes he can’t. Five physically cannot take watching this anymore and turns to stare sightlessly out the window. He is overcome by his now familiar and entirely irrational guilt that everything would have been different if he had just been here.

“Always paying such close attention, Van.”

“Paying attention, watching, it’s all I’ve ever been able to do before. It’s never enough.”

“You’ve always wanted to make things better, I know. Do you really think this is the only way you can do that?” No answer. “What would you say if it were one of us?”

“But it’s not. It’s not one of you.” A long, heavy pause. He imagines the way all of his siblings must look. He will not turn around to check.

“Van, it’s not different just because it’s you. No, listen. I’ve been on the other side of this for a long time. I’ve had years and years to watch what my death has done to all of you. And the thing about being dead? That’s when you’re really stuck. You can’t help anyone anymore.”

Another charged pause, “But Ben, it’s like you said, I’m not you. And we aren’t all seventeen anymore. I know it will hurt after, but eventually… it won’t even be that different from before Dad died.”

“No, Vanya, no. Don’t—” Ben begins, but she stops him.

“It doesn’t even matter. It's not the point. One family, even ours, isn’t more important than every other family, every other living thing on Earth.”

“But there isn’t a guarantee that your life even endangers them.”

“Yes, there is, and what do you think all the other nearly eight billion people would think about this risk?”

Five starts to tune them out. He can guess where the rest of this conversation is going. He keeps his back turned and closes his eyes. He knows how he feels about what Vanya is saying, but he needs a moment to decide what he thinks. 

It’s never going to be necessary in this timeline, but he remembers the equations he wrote before he stole Harold Jenkins’s name from the Commission. He told Luther he was willing to kill anyone if it meant stopping the apocalypse. Vanya was more right then she could have known when she said there wouldn’t even be a question if she were anyone else. His own personal apocalypse in every sense of the word. His life is such a fucking joke.

Is really not wanting to do something an acceptable reason not to do it? 

What about when it’s for the whole world? What about when it’s for his sister.

Is this the part where he's supposed to pretend this has only ever been a moral mission?

The facts, what are the facts? How can they assess the actual level of danger in this situation? Is there any way to actually  _ know _ ?

But is that the question? No, honestly. Is it? That’s how he’s been viewing this whole thing since the beginning, and not only did it make everyone miserable, but it also objectively failed. Incidentally, it also continues to sideline Vanya in her own life. Not only is that bad form considering everything, it’s also another method that’s proven to be a complete failure.

There’s something in that thought, the beginning of an idea…

He pops into his room without even thinking about it.

…..

He pops back into the living room, realizing that his sudden disappearance probably looked bad to the others. Or maybe it’s the conversations that just got even more fraught. 

Either way, the mood in the room is dark.

Everyone is basically where they've been this whole morning. Allison is silently crying; Vanya is next to her leaning forward and looking stoic; Klaus is back to being glued to her side, absently petting an arm; Ben, still visible, is sitting on the couch arm closest to Klaus; across from them, Diego is tense with his arms tucked in; and Luther is busy looking at no one from the opposite end of their shared couch.

Five wastes no time scooting the coffee table a little so he can sit directly in front of Vanya. Her expression turns slightly wary..

“I’m furious at you for all of this, I hope you know that,” he says without heat. “And you would be too, if the situation were reversed.”

“I’m—”

“Don’t say sorry unless you’re taking it back,” he frowns, “and probably just say sorry less in general. You’ve definitely reached your limit for the rest of this conversation.”

“Five,” she sighs, no strength and all exhaustion, “all that time you spent in the apocalypse that was because of me.”

“An overly simple way of looking at it.”

“Come on. How long have you been trying to undo all of this? To save the world?”

Five winces, “It was never just about the world. You must know that. I wanted to save my family.” He reaches toward her hands, cradling them palm up in his own.

“You can still do that. All but one. That’s still pretty good.” The key is not to get to wrapped up in the feelings. He tells himself he’s just imagining the faint bruising he can see under her cuffs.

He glances towards Ben, “Well, two.” The two he was closest to before he left, but that’s his own shitty luck. She sees his hesitation and pushes the perceived advantage.

“Five,” soft and gentle, “do you remember why you first wanted to time travel. Do you remember our plans?” He nods, but can’t keep looking at her.

“We were going to get out.”  _ Years and years ago it had been Five and V against the world. _

“Us against the world,” she unknowingly echoes, “but it was never really just us, was it? The plan was always for everyone eventually. The thing that we both wanted was to save our family. Well this is how we can do it. Not how we imagined, but—”

“No,” he laughs humorlessly, “not how we imagined at all.” He looks up to make eye contact again. “I need you to know, V, I—” he cuts off seeing her expression at the old name. He swallows, “I didn’t mean to leave, and I never once stopped trying to get back.” It's the first night all over again, but they can be better this time.

“I know that, I do.” He does, he read the book, he knows about the sandwiches, he still needed to say it out loud. He squeezes her hands, she squeezes back. Contact is still a strange thing.

“Right,” he clears his throat, “well, I think everything you’ve said has been completely correct. Your logic is flawless, if severe. It's all very brave and very noble.” She smiles at his flippant tone, knowing very well how he feels about those kinds of things. “All quite impressive.”

“But?” she asks just shy of amused.

“But nothing. Right is right. And…” he twitches, “V, it’s your life. It’s your powers. It’s your choice. The first real one you’re going to make in almost twenty-five years, possibly ever. And it _has_ to be your choice. It has to be, because if it’s not, whatever we try… it’s not going to work.”

_ Character Aside #34: When he went upstairs Five realized it was like this: every number above Four was a failure in some way or the other with respect to their powers. Their father would say something like Klaus had self destructed in fear, Five had vanished out of arrogance, Ben had died basically overwhelmed, and Vanya had to be completely shut down. Five would answer by saying Hargreeves failed to teach them like they actually needed. Klaus, Ben, and Vanya are all obvious, but even over-achieving Five was pushed in all the wrong directions. (Though it’s almost physically painful assigning himself to anything like the slow class.) The lesson from this is clear: there is no point even trying to train Vanya without her input. She needs to be an active participant or it’s never going to take. Just ask Harold Jenkins. _

He lets go of her hands to pull out a tri-folded slip of paper from his back pocket. She looks at it with interest, but doesn’t make a move to grab it. He sighs, carefully blocks out all the people in the room who aren’t Vanya, and explains, “This is a contract for my services as an assassin. I come highly recommended, though I am currently working very hard to avoid my former employers, so I would honestly appreciate it if you didn’t call me on that.” He places the paper on the table, but cannot quite bring himself to take her hands again.

“Five? I’m not sure—” That’s good, he isn’t really either. But he’s treating this like it’s just another jump. Well, the axiomatic phrasing would call it a leap. It’s all riding on determination and faith is what he means.

“I do have a condition, of course, and one last thing I really need to know you understand.” She nods, more serious, and he runs a tired hand over his face. He failed to explain before; now he knows how much making the same mistakes over and over again actually costs.

He catches her eyes before he continues: “When I jumped forward and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?”

He can tell she recognizes the phrasing. “Nothing,” she repeats solemnly.

“Yes and no. The first place I went was here, home. It was just rubble, obviously, but I needed to be sure. You were the first person I called out for. You weren’t there.” He flattens his mouth, “I did find everyone else though. Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus. All older and all buried. I couldn't believe it was them until I saw the tattoos.” He watches her process it, but intervenes before the inevitable starts.

“Don’t apologize, that’s not why we’re talking about this. You already know I eventually found your book, so I knew why I didn't find Ben. But you, you were the one I could never figure out what happened to. In the early months I used to pretend I might find you. It helped, until it didn’t. And then, one day, I realized the obvious reason you weren’t at the house.” He pauses with a bitter smile. “It was because you were ordinary.”

“That’s what you said your first night. That was why you could trust me.”

He nods, “I thought it meant that you couldn’t have been involved in whatever happened. That made you safe for me to go to. Except you didn’t believe me, and so I left. After that, the truth is I don’t think I thought about you again for the rest of that whole week.” He pauses, but she looks more curious than hurt so he keeps going. “Even when I found out you were spending time with the one person I knew had a direct link to the apocalypse, I didn’t think you were important. Even when Jenkins turns up dead and you’re missing, I still didn’t think you were connected. I mean you had to literally bring the house down to get me to reconsider my assumption about you.” He waits for some kind of reaction, but she's just watching him with considering eyes.

“What’s the point, Five?” He puts his hands back under hers. He traces one of the lines on her palm to give himself a final moment to figure out what he needs to say. He looks up.

“I think you’re right about us being what Hargreeves made us. He really did turn you into a bomb. But I need you to understand that Jenkins was the one who lit the fuse and  _ we _ were the ones who pointed you at the moon. I don’t believe you would have ever gotten there on your own, and I honestly can’t think of a single reason why you would this time. With all that you've said and done since, I can't believe you’d let yourself.”

“You really believe that enough to bet the whole world?”

He doesn’t hesitate, “Yes, absolutely, I really do.” This is the most important part. She knows he isn’t sentimental enough to lie about this, not even for her.

“What’s the condition?” If she’s affected by what he’s said, she doesn’t show it.

“You give it a little time. I’ll do it, I promise, but only when you present a clear danger. After, not before. That's not so much, is it? Just a little trust. If not in yourself then in me.” She sits a little straighter, he can see the start of a fight, so he twists his hands so he’s actively holding hers. The fight dies.

“Why?” she whispers. And that’s the thing. She really doesn’t know and he’s not sure he has it in him to explain any more than he already has after fifty years of solitude. He grips her hands a little tighter and tries anyway.

“Well,” he looks up to catch her eyes again, “I... I haven’t seen you in a really long time, and I don’t want to lose you again.” He holds himself completely motionless while he waits for her answer. She exhales loudly through the nose.

There, the smallest hint of a smile, “You know you ran out of my apartment less than an hour after I said that right?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m kind of counting on you to be a better person than I am.” In every possible way. He’s not worried though. ( _ Once, Five knew Vanya better than anyone in the whole world. _ ) She just needs to accept the offer. She looks at him; he looks back. ( _ Right now the apocalypse only exists between the two of them _ .)

She squeezes his fingers tight. “You have to swear, Five, that the world comes first.”

“I swear. Look, you, me, all of us,” he jerks his head to encompass the rest of the room, “we’re going to save the world. You most of all.” He pauses, suddenly unsure, decides to take the risk. “Welcome to The Umbrella Academy, Vanya. I wish more than anything that it hadn’t taken this much.” She smiles outright with amused eyes. ( _ Can local family be nice to one little girl? _ )

“Just like that, huh? It’s really that easy?” At her look he feels the tension start to bleed out of him. He worries he’s going to collapse without it to hold him up. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling though. 

He huffs, “Which part, precisely, did you find easy in all of this?” She lets out a quiet laugh that’s more of a breath. It’s close, it’s so close, but this needs to be certain. He asks the question without speaking it. After a long moment there is a small nod. Five takes in a long breath, lets it go. His grip tightens on her hands. He has to close his eyes against the sudden rush of feeling. He opens them again, finally letting his awareness of the others filter back in.

Vanya’s head is turned into Allison’s shoulder, with Allison pressing a kiss on her forehead. Allison is looking at him impressed. He nods at her in similar recognition. Klaus has one glowing, blue arm around Vanya’s shoulders and the other around her middle. He is whispering something to her that Five can’t hear and doesn’t need to. He looks pleased and very tired. He looks to see Ben already staring at him. His brother is giving him a grateful look, soft and somehow knowing. He cannot see Diego or Luther behind him, but does not feel enough urgency to check. For now, it is enough to know they're fine. His hands are still in Vanya’s.

He doesn’t know what’s on his own face, but Klaus looks him over and untangles his arms from around their sister. This causes her to sit up from Allison and look first to Klaus then stare at Five.

There is no conscious decision to rush forward and hug her. From one moment to the next, he is simply there.He knows he won’t be able to old it for long, it’s already close to being too much, but it’s a start. That’s all any of this is. It’s all it has to be. A start, a start, a start.

From across the room the old grandfather clock announces the new hour.

….. ….. ….. ….. …..

Two Weeks Later

Five jumps to the door of Vanya’s apartment in the morning. He can immediately tell it’s too quiet. He sighs loudly through his nose. Yesterday had been a struggle. They’ve all been getting used to her new routines, so he’s not totally surprised she’s still out taking time to recenter. There have been a lot of walks lately.

He decides to wait inside and finds a familiar tri-folded piece of paper in her kitchen. On the back of his hastily scribbled contract there is the following note:

_ Five was right, it wasn’t fair for me to ask this of you. _

_ Things can’t keep going like they have been. We all know it’s not working. _

_ I’ll be back as soon as I know how to be. I’ll keep in touch when I can. I’ll stay safe, I promise. _

_ Please don’t worry. I love you all. _

_ -V _

_ P.S. Klaus (and Ben), you can keep crashing at the apartment for as long as you want while I’m gone. I own it outright, so there’s no need to worry about any of that. It’s a safe place. _

He has to read it a few times to make it stick.

The first time he thinks it’s actually pretty funny because yeah, given everything, he absolutely had something like this coming.

The second time he hopes one of his siblings shows up so he doesn't have to be the messenger. To encourage this happening he sits down on the chair he has privately started thinking of as his in Vanya's living room.

The third time he thinks it was characteristically kind of her to include the postscript to Klaus. Having a place to be outside of the Academy has really been helping him stay sober. Five wonders if he can get in on it, because he knows this news is about to make their childhood home even worse.

The fourth time he thinks about how he felt things had been getting at least a little better. But then he knows Vanya is good at hiding things when she needs to be. And twenty-five years of relative normalcy means she has different ideas on acceptable risk compared to the rest of them. He hopes she comes back soon ( _at all_ ).

The last time he realizes he was completely right before.  _ The best way to stop the apocalypse really is nothing more than just getting the fuck out of Vanya’s way.  _ It is still an absolute gut punch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man oh man oh man. Does that count as a cliffhanger? For anyone feeling cheated out of getting extended moments of Vanya POV, boy have I got some good news about the next chapter... Stay tuned!
> 
> Below is some author commentary, but otherwise sweet dreams, everybody!
> 
> \------
> 
> I'm still not totally sure about this one, but you can only keep staring at something for so long. I hope it worked like I wanted it to! 
> 
> To wit, here are some clarifications and notes:
> 
> On unreliable narrators: I would say one big problem with the Hargreeves Family is you've got a bunch of people all technically looking at the same problem, but each one is reading an entirely different question out of it because they've all got such different mindsets. You've got people who are very moral or pragmatic or selfish or caring or sensitive etc. Right now everyone is focused on what Vanya went through. For their sake, I like to think they'll keep pushing to widen their perspectives on everything that's happened to themselves and each other. But right now at least, they're all still trying to work out of their tendency towards all-or-nothing thinking.
> 
> On responsibility and guilt: I am not trying to suggest that Vanya was completely blameless in everything, though I do believe there are several key moments in which she was lacking either the information or the agency necessary to make real choices. I'd say this is true for all of the siblings at one point or another, but she is unquestionably the most extreme case. How this context influences our and the character's opinions on her actions is entirely subjective.
> 
> On the pills: I am clearly really hung up on this detail, because I see it as the most complicating factor in Vanya's whole story. We have no idea what medication she was on, but based how her medication seemed to make her feel and what happened when she went off them, some kind of benzodiazepine makes a lot of sense to me. Comparing her behavior after she stopped taking them to a list of withdrawal symptoms is a really upsetting way to spend an afternoon. Please don't stop taking chemistry altering pills without medical instructions on how to safely do so!
> 
> On Vanya's reaction: one of the things I'm most stuck on with everything that went down in the last two episodes is like, genuinely, how would a normal, ordinary person react to having powers that could and have ended life on Earth. How do you cope with that, especially if you were the kind of person who cried over ants? A lot of where she's coming from is her trauma, but I think being who she is a part of this genuinely is just a moral question.
> 
> On The White Violin: my take on Vanya's powers is pretty specific and will be touched on more over the last two chapters. When if comes to the being, for lack of a better word, she becomes in the last two episodes I will only say I personally believe the W.V. is a fundamentally neutral force with huge potential for destruction. Personally, I do not believe the world would have ended had she been allowed to complete her concert.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope to have Part II up by next week. good luck and godspeed
> 
> I have a tumblr @ jenndoesntwantto if you're into that kind of thing or you just want to scream in sync with a stranger


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